Raising children is no easy task. Now add happy and successful in the equation. What you land up with is perhaps the most puzzling question of all time!
The things is, success and happiness do not come from a single attribute. There are an array of factors that contribute to real happiness and success. And some factors are more important than others.
Most parents equate success with quality education, which essentially boils down to good schools and universities. But does future success of your child really depend on them? Not really!
Michael Faraday, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Michael Dell, Richard Branson, Dhirubhai Ambani never went to any elite colleges and yet were immensely successful.
Clearly, there is something beyond the obvious factors. It is Parenting! The way you parent your children can really influence their personality and shape them to be more successful and happier.
Simple Habits to Raise Successful Kids
1. Parenting Style
Your parenting style has a lot to do with your child’s development. Be a helicopter parent and you raise dependent, self-doubting children. Give too much freedom and you make your children complacent and entitled. Take a middle ground and you set your children on the road to success.
Parents who are authoritative that is empathetic but rule abiding, raise balanced children. Such children stay motivated and understand their rights as well as responsibilities. Authoritarian and Permissive parenting both are bad for your kids.
2. Right Mindset
Carol Dweck, former Stanford Dean, emphasized tremendously on the positives of a growth mindset. Help your child develop one by proper encouragement and emphasis on hard work.
Teach the significance of hard work, dedication and grit from early years. Children who believe in these virtues are better at handling failures and stay happier.
3. Assign Chores
A lesson in daily chores can teach children much more than an hour of study. Children need to learn to be responsible for themselves. Chores not only help them build necessary life skills but also imparts important lessons in team work and cooperation.
4. Let them Fail
Allow your child to fail and learn from her mistakes. A child who has never failed, has perhaps never tried. Failure, in fact, has the power to impart most valuable life lessons.
Resist your urge to correct their mistakes and make up for them. Children who question their failures are bound to learn from them.
5. Give control
Children who make decisions for themselves fair better at life. Let them set their study time and analyze what works best for them. Of course, they have to operate within the rules of the family.
6. Provide Safe, Secure Environment
Human beings reach their peak performance when they feel safe and secure. It is a basic need. Provide a safe home where they can discuss their blunders and yet feel loved.
One way to provide children with the net of safety is to eat dinner together. Eating together fosters a deep emotional bond between parents and children. Thus, providing children with the emotional security they need.
7. Respect
Always treat your children with respect. Their age has nothing to do with being demeaned. Respect your child the same way you would respect an adult. No mistake is big enough to take their dignity away from them.
8. Don’t make Happiness a Big Deal
We all want our children to be happy. That said, don’t make a big deal out of it. In fact, I feel it is humanly impossible to be in a state of constant happiness all the time.
Teach your child that happiness and sadness are part of life. Not every moment is going to be happy, just like not every moment is going to be sad. Neither are going to stay forever. Make the best of the moment at hand.
9. Praise them For who they are
Instead of praising achievements of your child all the time, praise him for the person he is. Build their self worth and do not tie it to their grades and achievements.
10. Value effort over outcome
When children are appreciated for their efforts and not outcome, they learn to put their faith in hard work and effort. Ability to adapt and change to achieve the desired result is imperative.
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