Keeping promise to Children

Children are encouraged by their parents by giving gifts and sometimes they promise to reward them by more gifts. If the parents break their promises, the children might learn to the same in the future. AEPO’s writer/producer has talked to some children and a psychologist about this issue. A child, Mirwais a resident of Shakardara district, Kabul province says: “once my father promised me to buy me a bicycle but he broke his promise and I was so sad.”

Another boy, Noor Ahmad, a resident of Ghazni province says: “when I was a small boy, I liked to visit the bazaar. I was always asking my father to take me once with himself to the bazaar and he was always promising me but he was breaking his promises. One night he said that he wants to go to the Ghazni city and he strongly promised me to take me with himself the next day. My mother prepared my clean clothes but when I woke up in the morning, my father was gone and I became very disappointed and when he came back, I did not want to talk to him.” A psychologist, professor Muhammad Zahir Shams says: “Breaking promises often could have a negative effect on child psyche. When parents do not keep their promises, they are unintentionally teaching their kids not to trust them. Parents generally make promises to encourage their child to do better. Once it is achieved, they will break their promise. Eventually, your child will not trust in you. If you break your child's promise, he/she would be disappointed and might not trust you again. When you promise your child something, you are assuring your child that he is very important. But at the same time, if you do not keep your word, he will feel neglected, unvalued and unimportant. When you keep the promise with your child, it would help them to develop an understanding of trust and respect for others. If a parent is not true to their word, they are not showing integrity. Eventually, this will lead to your child disobeying you and losing respect for you.”

What do people think about the causes of this issue?

Rahmatullah has left a message on Facebook: “those who make empty promises to the children, they do not know how to treat their children and they might have some psycological problems themselves.” Hameed Rawan says: “some parents have to make empty promises because some children do not do their work without any promise.”

Professor Shams says: “Some families and parents think that deceiving children is a good method and this method might not badly effect on children and they promise to their children but they could not fulfill their promises. Sometimes, some children have unnecessary wishes and they force their parents to accept their wishes and in the result, the parent could not fulfill them.”

How do parents solve this issue?

Khoshal Sadat, a resident of Baghlan province says: “when I and my two sisters were in primary school, my father was promising us that if any of us learn well the school lessons, he would give us some gifts and we were trying to learn well and he was really giving us gifts. Once my father promised me that if I get excellent marks in the exam, he would buy me a bicycle. I tried my best and got good marks and he bought me a bicycle and I became very happy.” Professor Shams says: “we should not promise what we could not do. We should convince the children what could we do for them and we should be patient to listen to the wishes of our kids.”