A child who never hears “No” at home may struggle to accept rejection, respect other people’s boundaries and cope with disappointment outside the home.

📋 Breaking It Down

We are barely a month into the long school holiday, and already, social media groups for parents are filled with complaints.

Parents are worried about children as young as 12 being bullied by their peers in city estates for being fat. Their dilemma? In school, teachers usually handle bullies. But how do parents deal with children who bully others in the estate?

Then there are, particularly girls, who are now barely eating so that they are not called fat. You have a pantry and fridge stocked with food, yet your 12-year-old serves herself two tablespoons of rice and spends the day drinking gallons of lemon water, convinced that if she drinks enough of it, she will get a flat tummy.

📌 What You Need to Know

Remember, their idea of fatness is shaped by influencers and images they see on the smartphones we have bought them, but we have not taken the time to explain what they see on these devices. Our children imagine the skeleton-thin they see everywhere is what beauty should be.

Other parents are wrestling with a different dilemma: how far should they give in to peer pressure when they are the ones financing and raising these little humans? Do you allow your nine-year-old daughter to wear Boho braids that hang almost to her feet, false eyelashes and hot pants, and apply nail polish and lipstick?

Imagine paying to have eyelashes fitted on a child whose natural lashes are barely developed. At what point does letting children express themselves become dressing them for an audience they are too young to understand?

One mother in a parenting group posed this dilemma: “My daughter is 10. Girls in our estate are wearing fake nails and false eyelashes, and I feel she is too young for these things. But I worry that if I don't pay for her to get these, she will be teased or feel excluded if she is the only girl not doing what her peers are doing.”

I know we raise our children as we deem fit. But how do we strike a balance between setting reasonable boundaries and allowing them to fit in?

Why do we fear telling our children: “This is us; what other families allow their children to do is their business.”

📰 Source: Nation Africa