Helping your tween overcome an inferiority complex
As per research conducted by Schools in India having second thoughts while and before doing something, whether it’ll go well or not, is a common and natural phenomenon, and we all experience this. At several points, we doubt our own’s abilities and adequacy to do something. This actually shows that we are not haughty, and we look to check our mistakes. But what makes it serious enough to be discussed is when it crosses the limits, and you constantly keep on doubting yourself and your abilities and thereby belittling yourself. That’s when it becomes an inferiority complex.
Inferiority complex is the constant deed of thinking and believing that you are incompetent at most tasks. This creates negative energy around you, and you further go on to get anxious and feel insufficient by being inside that negative bubble. Inferiority complex is a situation that most of us have faced at some time in our life, and we, too, had a hard time dealing with it. Back then, humans didn’t use to give much importance to their feelings and thoughts. We used to suppress them. But the new generation believes in expressing themselves, which is undeniably right and is what we needed in our times.
So when your tween faces some level of inferiority complex, then you as a parent how can help him/her is what this article is about, to help you to help them. We’ll look at the traits that a person going through an inferiority complex may possess, thereby giving you solutions.
Traits of inferiorly complex individuals as told by the famous International Schools in India:
- Perfection
Individuals with high levels of self-doubt and low self-esteem tend to be constantly striving for perfection in everything they do to get validation from others. They believe that whatever they do is only likable when it is perfect or flawless, but this ideology is impractical and highly harmful to any person. What makes something the best is the amount of effort that you put in and the extent to which you genuinely liked it while doing it, as that brings out your passion while performing. So parents understand this. Looking for perfection is never a healthy trait, but giving our best is. Never discourage your child by reacting to their performance as it could be better or pointing out what they left. Instead, praise them for the extent they reached and further encourage them to do it again.
2. Fear of refusal
Individuals, whether tweens or teens, or even youngsters, a lot many times face the fear of getting rejected and refused. Due to this they create a comfortable isolated zone around them and tend to never come out of it. They become anti-social to some extent and stop expressing their thoughts to anybody. To deal with this attribute, never show signs of rejection to your kid’s ideas and thoughts that they voluntarily share with you. You must be enthusiastic while listening to them. When their confidence gets built inside the house as a strong base, they can effectively deal with the outer world.
3. Criticisms & complements
The two extremely contradictory Cs of our life. One knocks us for our wrongful thoughts and acts (criticism), and the other praises us for our good performance and doings (compliments). Individuals with an inferiority complex tend to take both negatively because, again, they create a negative bubble around them. When complimented, they don’t feel comfortable with it as they stick to the belief that they can never be good enough. At the same time, when criticized, they tend to defend themselves by aggression and shunning out others. To handle how your kid takes remarks and suggestions, you need to very ambiently make him/her understand that human life is not possible without criticisms and compliments, and they need to learn from whatever they receive. The prime step to this is building your kid’s self-confidence, which becomes the ultimate pillar of an individual’s life.
4. Fault-finding
This trait some individuals may not have to a visible extent, but still, it may exist. For instance, some people generally don’t like what others suggest and offer (mostly self-competent individuals), so this too is a little trait of an inferiority complex. To somewhere make themselves seem less miserable (which they might not be in reality), they may start picking on others and constantly belittling them, but eventually, such individuals are belittling themselves in doing so. For this, you need to incorporate the habit of helping others in your kid, make them understand that mistakes happen to everybody, and they just need to be acknowledged, whether it’s our own mistake or others'. When your kid helps somebody in improving their mistake, it’ll make him/her clearly understand too that mistakes are bound to happen, and they need to be acknowledged.
5. Aggressive defense
A trait that is explained in the above point of criticism, yet it appeared individually here is because of the extent to which it impacts a person. This is a very common tendency of low self-esteemed individuals to use aggression as a defense mechanism in most aspects and situations of their life. Instead of thinking about it and trying to understand, they tend to just shut out other people. This use of aggression as a defense gives them the misleading sense of safety that they’re safe and nobody can hurt them, wherein they themselves are actually hurting them. Aggressive defense affects individuals as well as people around them too. For this one to be tackled, parents need to engage themselves in their child’s mistakes and, while staying engaged, teach them that every mistake needs to be thought upon and tried to improve rather than just ignore it. Merely ignoring aspects of our life can lead to bigger problems later. When individuals don’t have the habit of ignoring things/problems, they’ll automatically be always on the lookout for solutions rather than start defending themselves against the problem with aggression.
So inferiority complex is a serious issue and needs prior attention when it’s your kids that are facing it. Their minds are not that mature enough to handle the overwhelming thoughts, so you need to come into the picture and lay this strong foundation of confidence in their life that they are capable of doing anything to any extent of quality, and they just need to work hard. Self-confidence is one prime aspect of a human’s life that leads to and solves numerous issues we might have.
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