Often, I have heard parents say ‘I just want the best for my child’ I have said it myself. What does it mean?
The challenge lies in what we see as ‘best’. As a parent we want to share our strengths and values with our children, but I feel sometimes we can confuse what we want with what our children are good at or what they are interested in.
If you enjoyed sport and it was a strength of yours, it won’t always follow that your child will be the same and they may have other interests. As parents, recognising and encouraging our children’s strengths and supporting them to develop their own interests could be a good way forward to help them grow into their best self.
Here are some more ideas to support you in guiding your child to achieve their best self:
- Encourage strengths – we are all unique with our own set of strengths. When our child has opportunities to show their strengths this increases confidence and self-esteem. We won’t know what their actual potential is yet they all develop at different rates.
- Manage emotions – how does your child show up in challenging situations? How do they react when things don’t go their way? What happens when they have to wait for something they want? Learning emotional control is a great life skill and one as parents we can continually practice with our children. Simply telling your child to ‘wait’ when they want something or taking a breath when feeling angry or frustrated is a good start.
- Promote curiosity – curiosity helps our children grow and keep learning. Asking questions and exploring ideas creates a positive and active approach to their learning. Developing curiosity will feed their imagination and creativity. These tools will help your child be innovative in the future.
- Model Empathy to build empathy – as parents and grandparents we can model empathy by listening to our child. If they can talk about how they feel, about something they have seen or experienced, they are more likely to empathise with others. When your child comes to you with a worry or concern, try to validate what they are sharing, saying ‘I can see this is upsetting you’ – by responding this way they can use this language with their peers or family.
- Embrace a Growth Mindset – Our mindset is powerful and forms a set of beliefs about ourselves. A growth mindset embraces challenge and allows children to learn from their mistakes. As a parent we can use the language of Growth mindset to help bring down barriers by praising the effort of our child rather than the result. This instils the belief that through hard work and perseverance and practice your child will improve.
In helping children grow into their best selves, it is not one action but many that are linked together. I like to view it as training for their time at school and beyond into adulthood. By paying attention to who they are, developing their character and instilling the importance of empathy and self-control, we can start the journey of nurturing our children to grow into their ‘best’