Baby elephants are tied with a chain to a pole. At that age they cannot break the chain, so they stay put. When the same elephant becomes an adult, it is still tied with the same chain. Although the adult elephant can easily whack the chain and break it into pieces, this idea just doesn’t strike the elephant and his trainers are effectively able to control him.

* Take a goldfish and put it in a round fish-bowl. After few weeks if you take out this goldfish and put it say in a bathtub you will observe that the goldfish still swims round and round in circles the size of the fishbowl!

“I can’t do that?” – Millions of people all around the world are doing and achieving far less than their potential simply because they believe there is a limit, a boundary to what they can. And we believe that these boundaries were set in the mind during childhood. We believe that somewhere we as parents are the first and biggest influence in setting these limits, this glass ceiling in our child’s life.

Yes, we as parents, often quite subconsciously, set this conditioning in the child’s mind, specially when children are every small. And children continue to live within these limits (even when these limits are removed). What a scary thought!

The conditioning, like for the elephants, often lasts a life time. I am not trying to suggest the child will not be able to break the limits – many of us are thankfully able to do that. Anything can inspire us to do that, a peer, a role model, an inspiring book or anecdote, et al.

But there is also a chance that the child stays trapped in this glass ceiling. Can you take that chance? Wouldn’t it be better off that we instead showed the child, that just like the goldfish had the huge bathtub to swim, we have unlimited possibilities and potential to explore.

Perhaps the simplest and most common example of limiting the child is the statement, “You are just a child”. This is extrapolated by children as they grow up into “I am just an average guy”, “I am just a woman”, “I am just a small town person”, “I am just an Indian”, and so on. Seeking some excuse to somehow stay within the boundary that we have drawn around us.

But really how do we, as parents, put these limits? Here are the six different ways in which, I as a parent, can draw these circles around my child.

1. Limiting through Labels

When we put any negative label consistently, the child starts believing that he or she is like that. Deep into child’s life he or she may operate from the limits set by the belief. Lets say we just start calling our child ‘lazy’ – because he does seem to laze around, is reluctant in doing, say, household chores. Now it is obvious that mere putting the label is in no way going to make the child less lazy. So the label brings no benefit in the behaviour. But what this negative lousy label does is, over time, brings a change in the belief the child holds about himself. He grows up with this belief and communicates this to his peers. Now he may actually be not too lazy – but this perception holds out against him – in terms of opportunities, attitudes and even performance.

2. Limiting Capabilities

Often we do not give a chance to the child to explore her capabilities, while the child may think she is perfectly capable of doing (or at least trying). Let’s say a child is pouring water out of a bottle – for fear of water spilling, we may say, “Here, let me do it”. The message we are sending to the child is ‘what you think you are capable of,’ is not right, what I as an adult think is more important.
The other day when we were paying tennis the ball went outside the fence. My partner’s son who ran to fetch the ball wanted to throw the ball back over the tall fence. But, his father, rather sure that he will not be able to the clear tall fence, asked him to come through the gate and give the ball. I intervened, just encouraged the child by saying ‘I think you can throw it’, and while the game came to a halt for half a minute, in a few tries only the boy had cleared the fence.
If we do not give children chance to TRY OUT their capabilities, if child is frequently constrained by adults, then the child grows up with the feeling that: “Whatever I think I am capable of doing, I am actually not capable of doing”! Just imagine what difference it would make if instead we were to communicate, “If you think you can do it, go ahead and try, whether you will be able to or not, its still worth it”.

3. Limiting by not giving Responsibilities

Children love taking responsibilities, but we as parents go about not giving enough responsibilities to the child. Unlike capabilities, when it comes to responsibilities the child himself has never thought whether he or she can do it.
In Geniekids session with children, whenever we (facilitator) have a problem, what we do is offer the children the responsibility to solve it. The other day a three year old kept coming into the center of the circle disrupting all the other children’s work. All children started to complain “aunty he is disturbing us”. What the aunty said to the group was “You all seem to have a problem, tell me how can we solve this problem?’ With responsibility on to them, they came up with amazing ideas. One child said to him, “Sit with me we will work together”. Another got up, went up to the child, hugged him and said, “I love you”. Wow! When children are given responsibilities they start seeing themselves as bigger then themselves.

4. Limiting by not accessing Resources

There are many situations where the children think that they are NOT capable. The ubiquitous “I can’t” is when the child is putting a limit onto herself and we allow that my either helping the child or accepting the limit.
The other day a child came to me in Geniekids and said, “Uncle, I can’t open the door”. I said, “There is lot of strength inside you, and I am quite sure that you can open it – only you may need to try in a different way”. This dialogue went on for some time, when finally she was encouraged enough to go and try. And while I do not know how she did it, soon she came down beaming from ear to ear and said, “Uncle, I opened it myself”!

5 Limiting through Comparison

Perhaps the most common parental limit - as any comparison with another, not just sets a benchmark, but sets a limit. I only need to be better than my competitor. And that is my limit. Moreover, often I discount the other person, or further put the other person down, further limiting my scope by reducing the benchmark. Also this continuous benchmarking to others limits my exploring my own potential.
Most children come to Geniekids with a comparison mode. But we continuously harp on the code – “You can only TALK about yourself” and year after year, program after program, we see children suddenly start taking personal leaps!

6 Limiting by and because of Fear

One of my guides said, “Fear – you can either do something about it or learn to live within it”. Most of us do the later, drawing a thick boundary around us, fooling ourselves with a sense of false security.
Fear limits in two ways – first we GIVE FEAR to children: “Drink milk otherwise watchman will come”. “Score well in exams otherwise you will become like …..” and so on. Worst according to me is fear of God. It is as if God is not about love, affection, openness and inspiration but is about obeying and operating out of fear (of God), otherwise we are doomed to hell.
Strangely, we seem to not think what this kind of fear will do to children once they grow up. Do we just assume that children will outgrow these fears automatically? But researchers defer, they quote subconscious effects which many a times keep playing a strong role – specially limiting our achievement, social and emotional quotient.
The other way in which fear limits is when we (parents) operate out of Fear of failure: At the simplest level we think child will not be able to do a task properly and hence we end up limiting exposure. (Contrary to this, I remember my father sending me to a bank to make a draft when I was just 12 years old and how encouraging it was to me). At a more significant level we do not encourage talents and strengths like dance, music, sports for fear that child will not succeed (in these streams) and hence turn the children to more ‘safer’ careers.
This limits potential, limits opportunities of success, and limits the child’s life to become safer but less exciting. In a way we try to limit destiny! Would you like to do that? What do you gain or lose? Think about it.

As parents we need to remember that my opinions, judgments, and beliefs are ONLY MINE. Check to see what inheritance we are passing to our children. My thoughts should not be blocks but steps to help them leap into the still unexplored and full of promise world. My parenting should be liberating!

Let children grow up with what John Dove Isaacs said:
“It's amazing what one can accomplish when one doesn't know what one can't do”.

 

By Ratnesh & Aditi Mathur
For www.geniekids.com

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