Parenting and responding to children

This week was on parenting. Something that I feel stood out to me was the importance of how parents deal with their children and how it can either negatively or positivley impact them. We watched a video on a son who asked his mother if he could sleep over at his friends house. The mother didnt like his friend because of how he looked and didnt want him being friends with him and so she told him he could go, displaying mistrust in her son and making him feel like she didnt trust his judgement. His reaction was anger and rebellion. Most often this is what I have seen happen, where parents are too overprotective of their children and instead of instilling within them self-esteem and confident and a feeling that they trust them and have good judgmenet and that they believe in them, they make them feel like their not capable of good judgement and dont allow them freedom to make their own decision or proove themselves. We watched another video with the same senerio except the mother showed concern, asked him questions about what he would choose to do based on her concerns and made him aware of her expectations of him and what risks his decisions could result it but she allowed him to decide for himself and then she expressed her confidence in him that he would make the right decisiosn and that he had good judgement and that she trusted him to sleep over and hang out with him. His response was positive and it then put a level of responsibilty on him that would make him more likely to want to keep that trust with his mother. I have seen these resulted time and time again especially in my own extended family and friends. If parents are mistrusting, controlling and overprotective of their children they always tend to rebel and act as they expect them to act and do the very things they mistrust them about whereas parents I know who expressed trust and confidence in their children and taught them and then allowed them to make their own decision those people were always more motivated to live up to waht their parents thought of them and to keep that trust and confidence. Children naturally want to make their parents proud but if they are made to feel bad or that their not capable that is the behavior they will often reflect. To me this is so important to keep in mind when raising childrne and although I know it will be hard, I hope to do everything I can to have confidence in my children and have faith in them and allow them to make their own decisions with my guidance. I hope I always remember that.