Is It Ok If Your Parents Disappoint You?
Sounds quite ridiculous, doesn’t it?
How can the same people that we were born to disappoint us?
How can the woman who carried you in her womb for nine months, the man who gave countless efforts for you to be satisfied with your life, disappoint you?
Welcome to adulthood! This is when the truth unfolds. All those instances that you could not understand as a kid – this is the time when you slowly start understanding, and your disappointment just keeps growing.
To answer your question, yes, parents do disappoint their kids. While it may not sound usual, a lot of us have faced it.
Some of us still face it.
Regardless of the shock you are getting, there are multiple ways in which a parent can disappoint their kids. For some people, a parent might be a Godly figure, but for some of us, it is totally a different case.
Our parents have disappointed us multiple times, and they still do, but that doesn’t make us love them less. Do you stop loving people if they disappoint you? No right.
It is the same when it comes to parents. But letting go of the fact that the people who are meant to protect you are the same ones who disappoint you is hard.
But life goes on. The more you hold on to it, the more it will kill you from the inside. So, without any more delay, let us explore the depths of it.
Did They Disappoint Us, Or Are We Just Hurt?
Well, to answer this, disappointment and hurt are interrelated emotions. One gives rise to the other. If someone hurts you, it means that they have disappointed your expectations to such a point that you feel like they have broken your heart. On the other hand, when people disappoint you, you will eventually be hurt by their actions in the long run.
Disappointment happens when your expectations are hurt. That, indeed, is a terrible feeling.
For most of us, parents are our safe spaces, but what do we do when the same people are the reason for our disappointment?
It breaks us from within. That pain, the trauma, is unbearable.
It hurts even more when parents do not even realize that they have disappointed us.
How Do Parents Disappoint Kids?
Well, there are multiple ways in which parents disappoint kids. Some of these are minor, while some are major and can leave the kid traumatized, which is the case for many.
So, if you are a parent or a kid, you might want to look at these points to see if there was ever a scenario where you may have disappointed your kid.
Setting Unrealistic Expectations Or Them
Parents have a habit of setting expectations for their kids, which at times may seem unachievable. In fact, most of the time, it tires and exhausts the kid to the point where they start feeling disappointed in their parents.
While a parent may feel that their kid is disappointing them, the process goes both ways. If parents keep forcing their kids to achieve goals that are beyond their capabilities, they will disappoint their kid because no matter what the kid does, the parents will never be satisfied.
“When I received a 76% on my high school exam, my parents were not pleased.
You did hear correctly.
Just because I used to score higher than 85% up until the 10th grade, they had anticipated 88–90%.
But where did I make a mistake?
My parents would find my 76% to be extraordinary if I had received a 70% up to the tenth grade.” – Quora.
Comparing With Others
This is by far one of the worst things that you can do as a parent. Comparing your kids to others and bringing them down for not doing what other kids do creates the worst kind of disappointment among kids.
The more a parent compares their kids to others, the more the kid will compare their parents to other parents and the things they don’t do.
This will give the kids more reasons to feel disappointed with their parents when they compare them with what other parents do.
Not Being Understanding
Please communicate with your kid. The fact that we go around talking about healthy communication everywhere, but we fail where it is most needed. For every parent, it is imperative that they maintain healthy communication with their kids.
Communicating will help them understand what their child is going through. Kids at every age have certain anxieties that need to be catered to. A child must never have to deal with such emotions all alone, especially when parents are present.
Be there for your kids when they need you the most. Why do they have to go through it alone when a parent is present? This is how parents create distance with their child, further creating disappointment in the child for their parents.
When Is It Okay For Parents To Disappoint Their Kids?
Not all disappointments are bad. While parenting, there will be times when a parent will have to deliberately disappoint their kid, and trust me, that is for the benefit of the kid itself.
Believe it or not, disappointment is also a part of discipline. How many times have you seen a spoiled and undisciplined kid on the street and wondered what kind of parenting they received?
I agree; I have been there multiple times.
These are the same kids that never got disappointed by their parents. They never had to hear a no, nor had to face any strict boundaries that could keep them controlled while growing up.
Hence, a parent must disappoint their kid only when it is limited to disciplining them. As a parent, you also must know your limits so that you can stop your child from getting spoiled and spare them the trauma of having parents that disappoint them in each step of life.
Wrapping Up
Just as parents can sometimes feel disappointed in their kids, the kids can feel it, too.
Parents disappoint their kids and, most of the time, remain unaware of it. A lack of communication can further stain the child’s emotions and affect their relationship with their parents. This is something that no one deserves to experience.
However, it is also important that parents disappoint their kids to some extent in order to discipline them for their future. But that should be done in a limit and for disciplining purposes only.
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