There are various everyday situations that test how parents protect their children and how they teach them to protect themselves. These are common situations, ranging from whether to have a child seated in a car seat with a seatbelt, to how to react when a friend hits them at school.
Some parents teach the "old" childhood saying: "an eye for an eye, a 'bite' for a 'bite.'" "If someone hits you first, my child, hit them back!" Others advise their child to call the teacher, and some even go to the school to confront the classmate who hit them. Without getting into the debate over which approach is more correct, parents must at some point ask themselves how they are teaching their children to strengthen themselves and defend themselves against life's challenges.
Since the dawn of society, it has been understood that laws and rules are essential to protect citizens from themselves. Every day, new situations arise that lead us to reconsider basic rules: the mandatory use of child car seats to prevent fatal accidents, penalties for those who cross signs indicating that an area is off-limits, limits on behavior to preserve a small degree of freedom for each individual, and so on.
At this point, you might be wondering which country I live in, as in Brazil, it is well known that bad examples come from the top, and the Brazilian way always seems to get the job done. However, when parents think about their young, still defenseless children and the adults they hope they will become, the question arises: should they raise their children with the values they consider correct or with those that will make them fit better into the society they live in?
While the answer may seem obvious, it is not. Exclusion and bullying in schools are common and painful for those who experience them. Typically, the "popular" kids are the rule-breakers, those who show their peers that they are fearless and do not need to follow rules. Those who do not conform are labeled as nerds, babies, mommy's boys or girls.
Let's face it, in the society we live in, the world belongs to the cunning. The polite, kind, innocent individuals who follow the rules often fall behind. The newspapers show this daily, and many people choose to get involved to avoid "looking foolish." Parents end up refraining from intervening so that their children do not stand out from the group and do not become victims of exclusion. They compromise their beliefs to fit in. In doing so, they lose authenticity and coherence, two basic elements in the formation of a solid personality. It is through such a personality that we learn to defend ourselves.
Another way to prevent this self-protection from developing is when parents solve every problem for their children. Common sense dictates that parents should intervene less as their children grow older. However, nowadays, it is common to find parents in college dealing with their children's academic issues.
At the beginning of a child's life, the family's role is to cushion adversities, not prevent them. Up until adolescence, it is possible to teach the basics of how to navigate the world and provide the tools and values that will serve as support in times of crisis. After that, the world becomes the teacher, and at that point, protection must come from within.