We all want our kids to become successful adults in life, but what can we do to help them along that path?
Researchers have looked into the childhoods of successful people and discovered that many of them had these seven things in common.
While everyone has their own parenting style and each child’s needs are unique, these are all highly worth considering including in your child’s life.
Are you ready to give them the building blocks for success that they need?
#1 Read to Your Kids
Reading to children at a young age has been shown to increase literacy according to research. It also helps to boost verbal skills as well as problem solving.
Bonus: it’s a great way to spend quality time with your child and can be easily incorporated into the family routine.
#2 Have Them do Chores
According to research, doing chores as a child will significantly increase a child’s success later on.
Learning about responsibility is something we do through practice, especially as children.
Through chores, they will learn that they can have a positive impact on their environment while also discovering the work that is required. This leads to a sense of responsibility as well as respect for the work of others.
Just about every kid who later grew up to be a successful adult had chores in their life.
#3 Avoid Instant Gratification
Teaching patience is much more important than the short-term glee when a reward is given immediately. Have rewards be earned and teach your children that they need to have persistence to attain them.
This will prepare them to be successful by making the rewards of life more valuable to them, encouraging a positive work ethic, and reducing their levels of disappointment when thing don’t immediately work out, which they often don’t in adult life.
#4 Reduce Screen Time
The American Academy of Pediatrics highly recommends limiting screen time for your child’s development.
Their recommendations include:
“For children younger than 18 months, avoid use of screen media other than video-chatting…
For children ages 2 to 5 years, limit screen use to 1 hour per day of high-quality programs…”
They also suggest creating media-free times, such as dinner, so that interaction is encouraged.
Too much screen time can lead to shortened attention spans as well as delayed social and verbal skills.
#5 Let Them Know it is Okay to Fail
While it may be hard at first, learning to fail is how we develop the skills needed to succeed.
It helps children to understand that not everything in life is easy to attain. Many things take effort, patience, and even trying again when the first time (or even several times) doesn’t have the desired result.
This life skill also encourages self-improvement as part of the “try, try again” process.
#6 Create a Happy Home
Research has shown again and again that parental involvement and a positive childhood experience lead to becoming an adult who is more likely to be financially stable and have a healthy self-esteem, and is less likely to suffer from depression.
One of the best ways we can encourage our children to grow up to have healthy and productive lives it to emulate it at home.
#7 Encourage Their Interests
Discover your child’s interests and encourage them to develop them. Offer them the tools and materials necessary to do so, whether it’s paints, a guitar, or a pile of physics books.
While we may all have an idea of what we want our children to succeed in, they have their own ideas and passions as well. It’s important to take advantage of that natural energy and focus and see how far they can take it.
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