Can we hate other people’s children?

Who has never said to themselves, seeing the child of an acquaintance roll over on the ground or speak ill to another human being, that he was an unbearable boy? Who hasn’t rolled their eyes in exasperation at the frankly ridiculous behavior of a 5-year-old mini-human speaking like the plague that once plagued us in high school?

Those are things that happen. Yet there are children that we appreciate, that are nice and funny, but sometimes, when you see little Marie-Cécile speaking with mad contempt for her age, or when little Louane slaps your offspring in the facecan put on the teeth of calmer people.

But what does this mean for us? That we it’s not wired correctly, because it judges children who are supposedly supposed to be pure and innocent? That you are the worst person because you don’t like dating a guy or a guy who is visibly toxic to the people around him? NO. We have the right to hear itbut what we must above all try to understand are the reasons for their behaviour, above all when the latter looks too much like an attitude which is not their age, or which should not be tolerated, not even at home, in adulthood.

Children are sponges

Have you ever heard the phrase ” children are sponges, they hear everything »? True, children absorb a lot, even if it is not always visible. Children, these little beings who are born with a naive, fresh and innocent look at the life around them, will absorb, like sponges, everything that happens around them.

They will reproduce behaviours, attitudes, they can even feel the same aversion or love that their parents, where those who raise them, have for people, objects, foods, colors. In short, they are small imitators. And sometimes we forget it. As Ben Mazué says so well in his sublime song When I walk: “Guys, it’s ‘do what I do’, not ‘do what I want’ or even less ‘do what I say'”.

When you have responsibility for a child, you need to set a certain example so that he has a basis to lean on when dealing with the outside world. If we cannot show them, thanks to our attitude, the path we would like our children to follow, we should not be surprised at their behavior which may not be suitable for society. in which they live.

Early in life, the child is only what it knows

To give you a dramatic example, which I have witnessed in my personal life: my daughter is in kindergarten, in the big section. One of her classmates punched him on the nose during recess, on purpose. It wasn’t an accident, it was a blow given in reaction to a minor event.

Her teacher called me to talk about it, because the gesture was violent, aggressive and incomprehensible, and my daughter was really shocked. But I learned that the girl who had hit mine had only these specimens at home, since it was in this climate of violence that she had grown up. Does that make his gesture less serious? NO.

But I understood it better and it really made my head spin. This little girl is no different from mine, they are the same age, attend the same class, same friends, love the same cartoons, but one has grown up with blows and a way of communicating one’s emotions quite different from the other. And that changes everything. It’s not this little girl’s fault, but the whole environment she grows up in.

Does the fruit never fall far from the tree?

Well, it’s a tough example I’m telling you about, quite extreme. But when you are faced with a child who has behavior you can’t standlike a child who speaks ill to an adult, condescendingly, contemptuously or insolently, try to see where it can come from. The fruit never falls far from the tree and, except in rare cases, the child is only a reflection of who raises it.

To the question: can we hate other people’s children? Could we say yes, because everyone is free to feel and think? Not liking other human beings doesn’t make you bad, it’s okay not to like everyone. Yes, there are children with personalities that can best be described as boring, annoying, noisy, rolling around on the floor in supermarkets. There are children who have complicated emotions to manage, because it’s not easy to hear so many things when you don’t have full brain maturity yet. Well, there are also a little stupid kids, just like adults, but what do you want, it takes everything to make a world.

Some parents don’t realize the impact that their attitude and way of being can have on their children, who imitate them, even unknowingly.

But the next time you come across a child who is behaving in a way that irritates, annoys, or worries you, also look at the top of the tree he fell from. Often the explanation is not far off.