How to Succeed as a Parent

Every parent wants their child to grow up into a responsible citizen that does fantastic things with their life. But, unfortunately, parenting is not that easy. Not everyone can be Mike and Carol Brady and raise an incredible bunch. It takes more than a wish to put your child on the straight and narrow. Here are some tips on how to be the best parent you possibly can be.

Make Them Earn What They Have

As an educator, it can be quite easy to pick out the children that are handed everything in life from the rest of the group. Parents may believe they are helping their child out by giving them whatever it is they want, but they are hurting them in the long run.

Have your child earn everything that you give them. If you make your children do chores to earn their spending money, they are going to value a dollar much more throughout their entire life. Plus, they will know they have to work hard to get things in life. Their work ethic will be that much more significant than if you gave them things whenever they desired.

Don’t Believe Everything They Say

Parents want to give support to their children whenever possible, but don’t always blindly take their side in a dispute. Also, when they become teenagers and say they are going to be at the library studying, please make sure you check up on them frequently. A parent that believes every word that comes out of their child’s mouth is not doing their job as a guardian. It’s called parenting, which means that you may not always be their best friend when times get tough.

Promote Social Skills

Kids that are not taught the correct social skills by their parents, (little things like saying hello, including others, or just being a good person) will eventually grow into an adult without social skills as well. Social and emotional learning comes directly from parents as the kids’ witness every day how you act minute to minute. If you want your children to be an exceptional individual, then you will have to be one as well.

Demonstrate Proper Nutrition

Almost 40 percent of adults in the United States are clinically obese. This does not even take into account the people that are just merely overweight. Obesity will harm your child’s health more than anything else in life. It can bring on heart disease, diabetes, and an onslaught of other health problems. If you genuinely care about being a good parent, that means you should make proper nutrition a family thing and practice what you preach.

Allow Your Child to Fail

In today’s society, it almost seems like children are not allowed to fail any longer. Everyone gets a participation trophy and kids get sent on to the next grade level whether they are ready or not. Don’t be a parent that condones this. Show your child that there is nothing wrong with failing if they have tried their best, but allow them to fail in the process. If your kid is earning a bad grade in school, don’t take it out on their teacher. Let them see their actions have consequences. Winning at everything is easy to handle. All you do is slap high fives and smile a lot. Losing at something is when the real character is built.

Show Up

Perhaps the number one rule for being a good parent is actually to show up and be accounted for. Absentee parents may have great intentions, and life circumstances will sometimes not allow you to be around as much as you want around your child. Still, if you make a concerted effort to be there for your kid as much as possible, they will notice and appreciate it. Just like with anything else you want to be successful in life, it means you have to put in the time. You can’t phone it in. After all, how are you supposed to guide your child through life if you are not even around?

Help Them Plan Their Future

This does not mean that you get to plan what they do for the rest of their lives. This means that you can perhaps provide a bit of wisdom here and there when they are focusing on what they might do for a career down the road. For instance, I have a sister that has four costly degrees from college, and her job does not involve any of them. Instead, she just put herself over $100,000 in debt before she was hired for her first real job.

If you would like to understand better how you can assist your child in preparing for the future, iAchieve can guide you along the process. We enjoy helping out parents as they try to lend a hand to their children.

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