Soumi Pandey
There’s always one or two in the gang of little ones, who just stand out in every way. Every parent apparently wishes to see their children be more like these praise-earners and quite often, end-up comparing their children with them.
Most of us have heard parents saying, “Hey, you better behave yourself, don’t you see how well-mannered your friend, Joe, is?
Well, let’s accept the fact that no Joe is born in a day. You might have missed seeing him just a few years back when he was throwing the worst tantrum or taking the ugliest aggression out on those around!
Hence, comparing yours with the most talked-about kids isn’t quite the best you can do. A way better idea could be trying to model the behavior, nature, character, and habits of your sapling, while he is growing into a tree, with some of the crucial life lessons.
Of course, no parent is going to stay with their kid for a lifetime. As the kid grows up to attain maturity with age, the support of parents gradually decreases till the time they practically fade forever.
Hence, as they say, if the roots are firm, no storm can shake it. If a kid is well-prepared, dealing with struggles, failures, conflicts, and several odds of future, even in the absence of the parents, they may become as smooth as one can never think of.
Let’s check out a few important life lessons that can walk a long way to shape up every kid for the future, with the help of this infographic.
Let’s understand this in detail.
1. Sing the Song of Honesty
The virtue standing at the crest of good values is honesty. Kids mostly look up to their parents when it comes to ingesting values in themselves.
Hence, as a parent, refraining oneself from even the smallest and most harmless example of dishonesty can set an ideal example for the child in turn.
What else can you ask for, right? One may not realize but several things get inadvertently created in our regular day life that may not pass on the right message to the young ones.
For example, in case a child has scored poor marks, and as a mom you decide to handle the situation all by yourself without letting the dad know about it, may give your kid an idea that it’s okay to hide such things out of the fear of being reprimanded.
Guess what? While there shouldn’t be any reason for such fear in the first place, the idea of dishonesty that subtly got communicated is no less grim.
Alternatively, at any point in time, if you feel that your ward is lying on even the trivial matter, you should be calm enough to make them understand the goodness of owning up to the truth.
2. Work on Manners
Teaching a toddler polite markers like ‘thank you’, ‘welcome’, ‘please’, ‘sorry’, isn’t quite enough if as a parent you are gradually going to let it loose as your kids grow up, thinking he is already ranking high on mannerisms.
Well, as kids grow, their perimeter of exposure increases and they are likely to adopt several greys and blacks that are bold enough to overshadow the whites in them. Hence, there should be consistency in conducting oneself rightfully as a parent in front of their children, no matter what age the child is.
A constant endeavor of carving good manners in your kids will help them swim off the black waves.
3. Teach to Respect
In today’s world, respect for each other is much needed for a peaceful co-existence. Being respectful, be it to a relative or an unknown person, superiors or juniors, can only bring out the best of humanity.
Hence, teaching this life lesson to your kids will assess their worth, as a social being, for a lifetime. Respect could be for anybody – elders, partners, youngers, friends, or even that towards that unknown co-passenger of yours.
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Respect could be for anything – feelings, work, religion, belief, caste, etc. This personality trait can make your kid grow up as an exemplary human being.
4. Coach to Accept Disappointments
It’s important to teach your ward that life can’t be a crowning glory forever. There will be the inevitable sickle of disappointments, too!
These may mirror as failures, criticisms, loss, etc. Those who know how to win and lose with equal grace are called successful players and that’s quite a life lesson for every kid.
A parent should make their child understand the importance of accepting failures in their stride to sculpt the learning out of it. Unless they know the bitter taste of a failure, they won’t be able to enjoy the sweetness of success.
Why do you think, otherwise, the saying goes, “Failures are the pillars of success”?
5. Implant the Value of Time
Children should be taught to control time consciously from a very tender age. Teaching your kid how to prioritize and plan things timely can only help them grow up to become punctual, organized, and every bit systematic.
Time management goes a long way to aid in one’s professional scenario, too. Balanced time management can make one more productive, competent, and confident.
6. Talk About Responsibility
There’s no credit for raising a namby-pamby kid, who has no responsibility. Hold your child responsible for the simplest things right from early childhood.
Make sure the fruits of such actions are positive and constructive, only to encourage a sense of pride in them. A sense of responsibility in children can reap tremendous benefits. The successful installation of responsible behavior in your kid will help develop a healthy attitude, too.
7. Love for Learning
There’s no end to learning. Every kid should be taught the essence of it and they should nurture the urge to learn new things.
This urge in children can sometimes be natural or it needs to be created. While encouragement can help them develop the thirst for knowledge, as a parent you must also take that extra effort of motivating them for new discoveries. For example, your kid can sign up in programs like the Moonpreneur Innovator Program where he/she can learn the skills required to be future-ready and develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
New discoveries would definitely make for new learning along its way. This would automatically show up on a kid’s confidence, creativity, and self-esteem in turn.
A kid would also be inclined to being more receptive to different situations and experiences.
8. Talk Money
Why do you think we all had a piggy bank in our childhood? That’s solely because our parents wanted to instill the importance of saving money in us from a very tender age.
This is because kids don’t understand the toil that goes in behind earning money and hence, have a tendency of unnecessarily spending their pocket money.
Lessons to teach money management like differentiating between savings and spendings can help your kid in the long run. As a parent, you should also share your 2 cents advice and set your own experience as examples.
This will not only inculcate the value of saving but also the consequences of wasting money in your kid.
There could be a whole world of several other lessons like learning to be compassionate, forgiving, hardworking, following etiquette, good eating habits, and many more.
The idea is to provide the necessary wisdom and goodness to your child so as to make them a wonderful human being.
