Raising children: what do we miss?

It's a long article, but worth reading.

It is sad that most parents blame the society for their children’s behaviour. They forget they indirectly took part in building that child’s way of thinking and acting. Children are born to live and bloom freely. Parents should make it their duty to see their child’s full expression and realization of potentials. Psychologists have proved that our behaviour is a combination of family and community socialisation. Most importantly, the family being the first social agent is the biggest contributor to our behaviours. In this quick guide, I have discussed a few important actions we normally miss when raising up children.

Kindness and gentleness

Children are sensitive creatures. Whatever we say or do to them usually sticks long in their mind. Unfortunately, they dwell much on the wrong things we say about and to them if we are so careless as to be negative than positive with them. Note that the way we talk about their appearance or how many mistakes they do in the home affects their emotions gradually. You are lucky if they don’t hate you and themselves for that. Therefore, it is vital to watch how you treat them when they mess up, what measures you take to teach them ‘to err is human…’ As well, the teaching of kindness should go to as far as developing their positive attitude about apologizing to those they wrong and forgiving other people’s wrongs.

Love and care

Parental negligence always leaves children grumpy. They don’t understand how their own parents would not care a trifle about them. If you don’t provide for their basic physical needs, your time and stories, rest assured they will not feel connected to you despite being their parents. Buy the children clothes and school materials, of course according to your budget, be present, learn their life style and try to see how you can help out in their talents. Most importantly, cooperate with them.

Respect

When growing up, children make independent choices about how they will live their life. Unless the pattern of their choices is always troublesome, it is not good to always rebuke them. What I mean is; don’t overreact, respond to the behaviour respectfully. Show them how to make better decisions. Don’t yell at them for their mistakes, counsel them lovingly and help them see how they miscalculated their harmful decision. Make sure you are not hurting their feelings in the process. However, communicate the fact that you do not like their choice of action or decision, but are willing to support a better one.

Listening ear

All children want to be heard; they want their parents to be in their stories. It is normal. However, sometimes they are afraid to speak with you freely or ask for help because you seem ‘busy’ and or are always ‘serious’. They feel they can’t get any help from you because you are not open to earn their trust. Once you stay connected, you can easily know how they feel since they will run to you and share their day’s emotions. They will easily share their good and bad days; ask for help from you, if they need anything. In whichever situation your home is, never be busy to take time and build connection with your children.

Meaningful dialogue

Related to the above, a good parent strives to build meaningful conversations with children. Since the beginning, humans know one another better through contact. Do that with your children; visibly stay in touch with them, build a strong relationship and have fun together. You will easily understand their hearts’ desires, their mind, and why they act the way they do. Listening to their story and sharing your own, will definitely show them you care and are willing to work with them to understand the world better.

Discipline

The goal of disciplining children is to help them grow into descent, confident, humane citizens. It is important to discipline your children in the best way possible. The best way to go about it, is rewarding them for good work and behaviour, and punishing them for wrong doings and bad behaviour. Challenge them to be better persons. Every person that is challenged to take up specific virtues and build upon them usually grows quickly emotionally and psychologically. Your children are not exceptional. Challenging them to nurture proper life styles and habits such as empathy, honesty, self-reliance, and cooperation develops good character in the long run. These character traits are rewarding because they protect children from anti-social behaviours, self-stigmatisation, depression and anxiety, and many other disorders.

Teach them to manage their emotions.

Just like parents go through different emotional stages, children do too. Whatever positive strategies you have learnt to deal with your emotional phases, impart them into your children. Help them how manage failure, success, fear, day’s worries and every other emotion. This will help them release all forms of stress and anxiety.

Parenting is not a simple job. It requires patience and understanding to work. Otherwise, you are likely to be depressed, disappointed and heart-broken if you don’t positively take the jabs that come your way through your children’s behaviour. The list above shows guideposts that will assist you to raise your children properly. In fact, these tools reflect the fact that every little thing that impacts your children hit you tenfold. Therefore, put in the effort to provide a conducive environment for their growth.

What are we missing?

Equipping the children with the knowledge and tools to harness the power of Bitcoin.