Loving Your Child For Who He Is

I have lately come to realise the importance of accepting your child for the person he or she is, rather than the person you want them to be. This of course, is a lot easier said than done. When you are a parent, you want your son to have lots of friends, you want him to be brave and try all the games at the park, you want him to be athletic and active, and you want him to excel at school. Because we love our children, we naturally want them to be the best or at least do good in every aspect of their lives. But when we discover a weakness that in some cases is beyond our hands, parents can easily and unknowingly fixate on making that weakness go away; and this, in my opinion is extremely unhealthy for the parent and child. I have seen parents push their children into sports, force their kids to climb heights or go on rides that terrified them, or enrol them in academic programs that are beyond their capacity, all for the sake of beating a weakness. I have seen the look of despair on these children's faces and I have to tell you, things will only get worse. It is our job as parents to love our children for who they are, what they love to do and accept that they too are human with strengths and weaknesses. Accepting and empowering our children will make them a lot stronger than forcing them to do something they cannot do.