By Claire Adams, Personal & Professional Development Expert.
Bringing up a child is without any doubt one of the most challenging, but also potentially most rewarding experiences a person can have. The mixture of pride when they learn or do something well is mixed with less glamorous instances of dealing with vomit and diarrhoea, while the joy and peace you feel when they finally fall asleep is bound to be interrupted with the feeling of apprehension when they test the limits of their physical abilities and, unavoidably, end up at hospital.
Still, apart from the worries that every parent has, there is one even greater responsibility – teaching your children the right values. Needless to say, the phrase “right values” can be interpreted in many different ways, but that still doesn’t really reduce the importance of the parents’ role in helping the world become a better place.
So, what are those values that parents should help their children master at an early age?
Selflessness
Unless you are absolutely sure your children will be fine without having any “people skills”, you should foster positive social behaviour from the earliest age. Helping them understand that by working in a group they can achieve so much more means you’re preparing them for their future personal and professional relations.
Once they grasp the concept behind social interaction, your children will be more likely to grow up and become valuable and appreciated members of society, who will pass on the same values you taught them onto their children.
Empathy
Although many people believe empathy can’t be taught, nothing can be further from the truth. This is a complex phenomenon, which includes several components, such as taking another person’s perspective, ability to distinguish one’s own feelings from the feelings of others and the ability to adapt one’s emotional response.
There are so many grown-ups who lack this quality that forward thinking experts, such as those at fantastic Wyndham Vale Childcare Centre, don’t waste time, but try to help children understand why it’s important to be empathetic.
Education
By teaching our young ones to appreciate education, we are actually helping them learn how to think both intensively and critically and how to find application for what they’ve learned. Education is also one of the key elements that affect children’s character.
The current trend is to discover what children feel passionate about quite early, so that you have more time to provide them with opportunities to learn and later hone their skills. So, help you children find their “element”.
Positivity
We can all agree that children have diverse capacities, but we shouldn’t forget that they can thrive in a challenging environment, which focuses on creating a positive mindset. If children are encouraged to learn a foreign language and appreciate the benefits of doing so, if their lives are enriched by the presence of various forms of art, they will become much more confident and knowledgeable, which will help them later in life when they’ll have to deal with all sorts of obstacles. Those with a positive attitude to life in general are much more successful when it comes to dealing with various issues.
Expressing emotions
Children are born without inhibitions when it comes to expressing emotions, but they develop them as a result of their interactions with others. Though sometimes the way they express their feelings may not be completely in line with generally accepted standards, it’s much more important to encourage them to continue speaking their mind, but perhaps in a slightly different way.
Bottling up one’s emotions is never a good idea and it usually leads to serious problems in various fields of life. If you don’t want that to happen to your children, help them understand that showing how they feel is not just OK, but a desirable action.
Final thoughts
If children are provided appropriate care and given enough quality attention, they will be able to acquire or learn many important values even at the earliest stage, which should help them prepare for the life ahead of them.
Your job, as a parent, is to help them learn and grow. And clean up after them, till they’re old enough. And change them, till they learn to do it themselves. And make sure they have food on the table and roof over their head, until they leave home. And try to help them stay away from trouble, until…
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