Karen Restivo
In other words
Witnessing the exact moment a new life enters the world is a profound experience that redefines our understanding of existence, serving as one of humanity’s undeniable, living miracles. As much as the physical birth is sacred in the laws of creation, nature leaves the actual artistry of raising a child entirely unscripted, offering no guidebook for the journey ahead.
Human nature fumbles grievously in its attempt to mold and sculpt the next Michael Angelo’s David, a masterpiece.
Given the history of our own childhood, we have a biased idea of what we believe worked, but most certainly, what we believe didn’t work based on our expert opinion.
How many of us set the bar for our own children leaps and bounds above what we ourselves were exposed to in our childhood?
From our perspective, the next generation’s coined term should be, “new and improved,” until the newness wears off and the expectations sour with the realization that our child has a mind of their own and behavioral patterns never witnessed in previous generations.
Instagram account @soulmindhub delivers an exceptionally insightful and precise diagnosis of what we as parents have witnessed in our sculpted masterpieces only to be handed an exorbitant invoice generated from our own lack of emotional intelligence.
@soulmindhub put it this way, “The most devoted parents often raise the children who seem the least grateful.
It is not a flaw in the child.
It is a mechanism, and it has a name - Adaptation Effect.”
The more a child receives without effort, the less capable they become of appreciating what they have.
What was once a privilege becomes an expectation.
What was once a treat becomes the baseline.
And as @soulmindhub observes, “Devotion stops feeling like a gift and starts feeling like the weather.”
Nobody thanks the weather.
This is not a parenting failure born of indifference.
It is one born of love, the very love that we wanted to give our children everything we never had, to smooth every rough edge, to make sure they never went without.
It turns out the brain is not wired to sustain gratitude for what is always present. Psychologists use the term hedonic treadmill as an analogy - the speed keeps increasing, but the child never actually arrives anywhere.
Dopamine stops arriving for whatever is always there.
It doesn’t help when we try to explain our way out of it with the chastising tone,
‘”You should appreciate this,” muttered ad nauseum and not generating our intended effect.
And @soulmindhub names exactly why: “Children do not analyze anything.
“They conclude. Their thinking is concrete. Having it means normal. Not having it means a problem.
“They haven’t witnessed the amount of time and hard work you have expended for their continued bounty.
Emotional intelligence is built from experience, never from explanations.”
The antidote is not deprivation. It is contrast. It is effort.
It is the deliberate introduction of waiting, of earning, of carrying something alone.
In other words, when a child works toward something by saving for it, earning it, waiting for it, something shifts internally.
The value of the thing is sustained.
More importantly, the child discovers something no gift can provide: the quiet knowledge that they are capable.
Karenrestivo57@gmail.com