When we enter a garden filled with beautiful flowers and enjoy its beauty that invites happiness and joy to our hearts, we might admire a single rose for its beautiful scent, distinguished color or pure whiteness that brings peace to our soles.
We might pick this single rose from among all these flowers, nurture it and take care of it , But if we stop for a while and think " will the other flowers be adversely affected due to our preference or not" What will we conclude? Naturally, flowers do not sense that one is being preferred over the other, but how will our children feel when we practice favoritism? Either because of one's advanced academic stand or behavioral patterns or other reasons?
Favoritism among children is often practiced by parents in their family lives. Some might argue "I prefer this child because he is respectful and obedient" or "I favor this child because he expresses his feelings to me and is very sentimental towards me" another might argue that "I favor this child because he is fun and I cannot stop smiling when I am around him" or "I prefer boys over girls because they will grow up to be men and support me" in addition to other arguments.
At times, parents find difficulty admitting that they indeed practice favoritism; they state that it is the child who makes an effort to be his parent's favorite through his uniqueness; thus it is only natural that the parent will act uniquely towards that particular child.
However, if we were to know the consequences of practicing favoritism and the negative effects it can bear; like jealousy, aggression, rage and vengefulness, we might reevaluate our practices and be more conscious of our actions to lessen the adverse effects on our children.
Most of us wish to see our children unique by beautiful characteristics, as their distinctiveness warms our hearts. However, differences will always be present. As distinct and as unique as some of them may be; it is our role as parents to be aware of what we do, and refrain from acting in a way that suggests that we favor one over the other, whether financially through making more purchases to a specific child, or through practicing different standards in rewarding and punishing, such as increasing punishment on one child and letting the other go with a slap on the wrest.
