Tips to Help Your Children Avoid Idolatry

In this article, we'll give you some tips to help you keep your children away from idols, because it can become a negative thing for them.

During adolescence, it’s very common to idolize certain people or celebrities we like, so we follow them and care for them. However, this fascination can become excessive. That’s why it’s important to help your children avoid idolatry. They must understand that they can like, admire and love people, but they shouldn’t do it at the expense of their own emotions. 

What does it mean to idolize someone?

To idolize means to love, worship and admire excessively someone or something. Furthermore, it means to follow and imitate this person’s attitudes, styles and manners. What’s more, we tend to justify any kind of behavior from the person we admire.

The problem of idolizing someone is that it sometimes becomes excessive and irrational. Therefore, we aren’t capable of evaluating the content of the messages they send through their speeches and behaviors.

Furthermore, we can’t control our feelings, and it affects our personality. In this case, admiration becomes negative, and it affects our emotions and our everyday life.

– Walter Riso –

Tips to help your children avoid idolatry

Youngsters should be able to admire their idols with a critical eye. To obtain this, it’s important that children grow in an environment where communication is always present. Thus, the following tips to avoid idolatry may be helpful to guide the conversation you should have about this subject.

Improve their self-esteem

To improve their self-esteem, focus on the things they’re good at. Even though it may be a group activity, let them know that every person is unique and different.

Help them get involved in an activity

Encourage them to practice an extracurricular activity, whichever it may be. This way, they may find a hobby at an early age, and this can make them feel happy and fulfilled. These activities could be related to sports, art, music or whatever they prefer.

Help them develop a critical eye

They need to be able to be objective when it comes to celebrities. Therefore, it’s important for them to see that what’s on TV or on social media platforms is not entirely real or positive. 

Improve their self-love

Help them love and trust themselves. It doesn’t mean they should be self-centered. However, they must love themselves for who they are and under any circumstances. As a result, they won’t feel the need to imitate other people, and they won’t feel inferior to others. They’ll also respect other people’s personalities.

More tips to help your children avoid idolatry

Transmit values

You should transmit the values of solidarity and equality to your children. In addition, they need to stop caring so much about shallow material things, and they should stop relating those things to the value of real people.

Realize their idols are humans

Help them destroy the myths surrounding celebrities, like actors, musicians and sport players. Then, they’ll get to see their idols are just human beings, with good qualities and flaws.

Furthermore, children need to understand that the almost perfect lives they see on social media platforms are just images of isolated moments, and not reality. Besides, it’s important for them to see that nothing is ever easy and perfect.

Conclusions

When we’re teenagers, it’s very common to have idols to follow and imitate. However, it shouldn’t affect our emotions and personality. Therefore, teachers and parents should work together to improve children’s self-esteem and develop a critical eye.

This way, our children and students will be able to admire someone without idolizing them. They could like, love and look up to someone, without feeling inferior. Finally, they should have the ability to criticize their idols if they don’t share their same core values.