Lord Chesterfield once said “Aim at perfection in
everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at
it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and
despondency make them give it up as unattainable.” Laziness and excuses are the
two things which spoil the self sufficiency of children. In a way we are also
contributing to it by making their false attitude grow by doing things
ourselves.
Laziness makes children ‘good for nothing’ and excuses
support their faults. It is an understood fact that we have to be nice with our
children and shall not put any pressure on them. But at the same time we have
to make sure that they are not taking it as granted. It is our ample monitoring
and guidance will only bring up children in the right path. Laziness in kids can be sometimes
associated with their physical illness or any mental stress. This needs to be
addressed properly by parents so that we can control thing before it gets
worse. If this is kept aside, the all other laziness in children is the result
of their habits. At very young age we facilitate everything to our children
which is a basic necessity but even then when they are grown up we continue to
do the same which gives a wrong notion in the children that they need not take
any pain for fulfilling their wish. It leads to ultimate laziness during
studies also.
Why do kids make excuses? It’s really not
as important to know why they do it as it is to know how to
deal with their behavior. When you think about it, we all make excuses from
time to time. The same thing children do when they say things like, “The
teacher didn’t explain the assignment that’s why I couldn’t do my homework.”
And your child is not the only one—all kids try to wriggle out of consequences
for their mistakes or for bad behavior. Kids see this happening everywhere on
TV, in the classroom, with their friends and sometimes from us. Keep in mind
that while your goal is to teach your child to take responsibility instead of
blaming others, his goal is probably to get out of being punished.
The
possible solution is to train children from young age to be self sufficient and
to show the guts to speak out if it is their own fault. Teachers can motivate
children in this as they can easily influence children. Many CBSE schools in India have inculcated
such personal quality development of children as part of their curriculum.