After a morning of fun and games, two brothers and their sister started to wash up. The older brother and sister helped the younger brother to wash his hair. Later that week, they came to the conclusion that they shouldn’t have bothered.

Parents have the duty to encourage children to learn how to navigate essential day-to-day tasks

“The little one has dandruff again,” they heard their parent complain to another. The children were playing a game of Tag nearby but their ears quickly picked up the rest of the conversation.

“He must have got it when the children washed his hair the other day. They use too much shampoo and they almost never rinse their hair properly.”

These two children had attempted to contribute something in the house and their effort was not appreciated in the least. It was not only made to look inadequate; it was also targeted as the cause of an irritating problem.

This kind of criticism is a common source of discouragement. Parents are quick to find fault with their children’s efforts, and hearing this type of criticism, time and again, has the undesirable effect of simply making children give up and letting the adults do all the work.

In Looking at Children: The History of Childhood 1600 to the Present, Christina Hardyment notes that childhood is currently “an experience of consuming food, clothes and entertainments manufactured outside the home and bought with their parents’ hard-earned cash, rather than a matter of learning about and contributing to a busy centre of production”.

Admittedly families do not grow their own food or sew their own clothes as often as they used to. Nor do many children live in extended family set-ups that used to provide the opportunity for myriad things to be learnt from a large pool of relatives. This does not mean, however, that children no longer have the opportunity to contribute in the running of the house.

Parents have the duty to encourage children to learn how to navigate essential day-to-day tasks and inspire them to be confident enough to take the initiative to do things on their own. They do not have the right, however, to constantly put down their children’s efforts. This happens all too often and may have the effect of wearing a child’s enthusiasm thin in the long run.

According to psychologist Michael Poplin, founder of Active Parenting Publishers, parents’ most common forms of discouragement are:

Focusing on mistakes and weaknesses. A parent’s feedback should not unduly chastise the child by highlighting the negative aspect of their effort and completely ignoring the positive aspects.

Take into consideration the developmental tasks your child is currently mastering. Ask yourself if your child’s achievement – however ‘inadequate’ it may appear in your eyes – has required a concerted effort on their part.

Having unrealistic expectations. It is unfair to expect too much or too little of your child. It is even more inconsiderate to expect the worst. If your child senses you have no faith in their capabilities, it is only a matter of time before they convince themselves that they are incapable of trying to set goals and reach new milestones.

If, on the other hand, you are convinced that nothing short of perfection is good enough, you will end up feeling dissatisfied and your child consistently discouraged.

Overprotecting your child. “Mind! You’re going to slip!” or “Mind! You’re going to fall!” These are, perhaps, two of the most regularly uttered phrases by parents. What is the message you are giving your child when you get into a routine of saying these phrases or something similar to them?

You are saying something like: “I am far better than you are and you need me to watch out for you!” It is reasonable to want to protect your child from harm and you will, quite rightly, ask your child to watch out if she is in danger. However, if children are playing together they are bound to fall and get bruises or scratches at some point.

The wrong kind of praise can be bad for a child

This is all part of normal living and you cannot protect your child from everything all the time. A child has to learn to deal with pain, whether physical or psychological. It is part of growing up. The important thing is to be there for them and equip them with the skills to cope on their own when the need arises.

It is interesting to note, at this point, how important it is to motivate your child with the proper kind of encouragement.

According to decades of research by psychologist Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, it is better to praise the effort a child has put into a task instead of praising her intelligence.

The wrong kind of praise can be bad for a child. Call a child “intelligent” and she may start believing that she does not have to make an effort in whatever she does because she is ‘intelligent’.

Applaud a child’s effort and she may start believing she can achieve what she puts her mind to provided she invests the time and energy to learn, develop new skills and accept new challenges.

As Dweck would say, “It’s all in the mindset”.