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Every parent wishes the best for their kids. They want them to be successful, satisfied and content with their lives. Most parents today hope their children are happy and lead meaningful lives when they are adults. But did you know that there are subtle things that you can do every day to ensure that this happens in the future? Parents have a lot of influence over their child – the way they act, think and how they turn out in the future. Most parents however take this the wrong way and think that the only way their children will be successful is if they teach them to have unrealistically high expectations of themselves and of life and follow them every second of the day to see that they follow this mantra. But in reality they should be teaching them how to be better at navigating relationships, building communication, boosting their own confidence, and developing critical thinking instead. So if you’d like to know how to teach your kids these skills, read on!
1. Praise And Encourage Your Kid To Build Self Confidence
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Your child needs to know that you believe in their abilities and talents. This is the difference between your child getting back on their bicycle after their first fall and walking away and never learning to ride a bike again. It’s the parent on the other side telling them it’s okay and encouraging them to try again. If they aren’t encouraged to get up and try again, and instead are coddled and told they can try again some other day, then they are being taught to play it safe. And playing it safe is not always the right move in the game of life.
Instead encourage your child to try and try again after their failures. This can be a parent saying “you can do it, I believe in you” and “I know that even if you fall again you will try again and eventually you will get the hang of it”. This way the child’s confidence in themself builds up as their parent is confident that they will overcome the hurdle they are facing. This confidence is what will help them strike out and try again. At the end of the day if your child believes that they can’t be successful in doing something, then they won’t be successful. Part of building that mentality of believing in themselves comes from encouragement from their parents, care givers, and teachers.
2. Help Them Develop Empathy By Expanding Their Emotional Vocabulary
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Sometimes it’s hard to express your emotions, especially if you’re five and don’t know the right words to explain how you are feeling. But you can teach your kid to do this through expanding their emotional vocabulary. You can do this by picking some easy-to-understand situations and try to help your children recognize other people’s emotions and embrace them. In order to do this you must name emotions in a context intentionally, like saying: “You look happy!” or upset, and so on. Keep asking questions about your child’s state, like: “How did that make you feel?” or “That thing scared you, didn’t it?”. The key is to help your little one understand that every emotion they feel is normal and that it is okay to feel a whole spectrum of emotions at once, as long as they learn to deal with it in healthy ways.
3. Teach Your Kids Patience And Delayed Gratification
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你的孩子不会patie的艺术大师nce in one day, nor should you expect them to. For your little one, it’s best to start small and teach them about delayed gratification gradually. Teaching patience has to begin at an early age. This could mean that you ask your toddler to calm down and wait until you are done preparing their breakfast. Or they can show you something or you can ask them to wait until you’re done putting away their toys before they can go play outside. And as they grow up, you can increase their patience level by making them wait for 2 to 4 minutes. Then all you do is keep increasing the waiting time until their needs are met.
4. Encourage Curiosity And Help Them Explore The World
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Most parents bring their kids into the world only to hide them from so much of it. And although we understand why you’d want to be overprotective, your kids do need to satiate their need for exploration and their inquisitive nature. This is why it’s so important for you to take your kids to different places. Allow them to explore and identify new problems and then challenge them to solve these problems in new and interesting ways.
Raising your children to be satisfied and successful doesn’t have to be hard. Now that you know these few tips, your children will go on to lead fulfilling meaningful lives. Happy parenting!
