by Carona Micheal Davis

Created on: March 16, 2009

Pushing a child to succeed will not help them to move further or faster it will on the other hand hinder them psychologically and emotionally. There is a difference between pushing a child and nurturing a child to succeed. In pushing your child to succeed you are basically bullying them to live up to your standards as parents, which may not be something that they want or are able to do. In nurturing your child to succeed you are naturally aiding in their own personal development as a human being which is a success in itself.

On the other hand you have your child who is very bright yet, lazy or hard-headed if you may. In working with these types of children you may have to give them a little push and even so the push needs to be well thought out and executed. You want to let them know that they are smart and that they can accomplish anything that they put their mind to. Some parents feel that constant yelling or harassing the child to do better work or the "failure is not an option" attitude towards school work or sports will get the child to do exactly what they want but it actually makes the child resent the person that is pushing them.

When pushed to hard children,

1) Become pushy themselves.

2) Socially withdraw.

3) Feel as if everything they do isn't good enough.

4) Become self loathing

5) Psychologically and/or emotionally unstable maybe hurting peers to get their desired end results.

6) Develop low self esteem especially if they lose or do not do as well as the parents expect them to.

7) Make life a competition, even relationships.

Working in the educational system, I have seen many parents push their children to succeed and the parent never thinks about the child but, they think more about the end result of the child's action in relation to their work or sports. It reminds me of those beauty contest for babies and children where the little girls are dressed up like little Barbie dolls and the parents put them in more make-up than any adult or child should ever wear. The parent is on nationwide television telling their child that they are not doing good enough and if they keep dancing or singing that way they are going to lose.

In the end parents need to find the balance between pushing and nurturing and understand when it is best to do one than the other. This can make the difference between a child that is healthfully succeeding or a child that is succeeding at any price.

Learn more about this author, Carona Micheal Davis.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.