Make this year your best ever!
Skills of a Successful Person/ Skills for Success
Ingredients
What skills does your child need to be successful? Many parents would like it if
their child used please and thank-you, did as they were told, went to bed on time,
got up on time, made a reasonable effort in school and chore work, and treated
themselves and others with respect. Some parents would also like their children to
value themselves, to be free from fear and anxiety, and to feel a sense of purpose.
Why do some people have a healthy positive attitude about doing work and relating to
others, while others seem avoidant, unaware, or angry about normal work and
relationship demands? Some of it has to do no doubt from temperment and genetics,
and some we can try to control through effective parenting and guidance. I'd like my
kids to enjoy their school, work, and friends. I would like them to be happy and
believe relationships and service to others to be important components of health and
well-being. I'd like them to show initiative when they go to work, by looking about
them and seeing what needs to be done, and then doing it. I'd really like it if they
would notice when there are dirty socks on the floor or trash in the yard and pick
it up without regard to who put it there or whose job it is.
Are these behaviors we teach through modeling and repetition, innate and coded in
DNA, character traits, or all of these? Being smart is helpful but without a good
attitude and and good habits (behaviors), being smart is not enough. Having mental
health condition can be an obstacle but we all know that many very successful, and
ultimately happy, people suffered from mental health conditions and made it through
anyway. Why?
What are obstacles to our youth developing the kind of healthy happy life we would
like to see them enjoy? Well, one might be distraction. Like digital media such as
video games, social media, email, television. In America we are working more and
sleeping less, seeing increased divorce rates and just had a huge recession. So many
parents, single or working, don't have a lot left when they come home to parent
their kids with. At one time school let out for the summer so kids could work with
their parents to harvest, prepare, and preserve. This gave parents and children work
and chore time that was not negotiable.
I don't know all the answers. My ideas about what kids need to be successful are
pretty old-fashioned. Here are some of my ideas, listed below. If you have ideas of
your own, I would love to hear from you.
1.) Clearly communicated expectations. "I expect you to treat your mother and I with
respect. Yelling and cursing at us is not acceptable." Don't be afraid to set high
expectations even when someone has a disability or mental health issue.
2.) Accountability: Rules about behavior with rewards and consequences when the
rules are not followed; "When your grades drop to a C or lower the electronics are
off-limits until they come back up."
3.) Frequent monitoring: Checking grade status online or keeping internet access in
the living room and not in the bedroom so you know what your kids are doing.
4.) Modeling: This means you don't let yourself blow up and yell at your kids for
blowing up and yelling at you.
5.) Love and belonging: You must be present and fully attend to each child
sometimes. They learn to feel valued when you value them by really paying attention
to them, turning off the phone and the TV. This takes time and effort.
Actually, all of these take time and effort. There is no magic technique or
one-liner here. You don't have to be a genius to be a good parent. A few months ago
a parent asked me, "How do you teach them to value relationship over materialism, to
respect and honor a parent over what kind of phone or video game they get?" I
thought, wow, that's a really great question, and I didn't have an immediate answer.
So I said, "Let me think about that and get back to you, because it is such a great
question." I talked to my friends and thought about it, and the next time I met with
that parent, this was my answer; "You are going to have to give them an experience
of being in a relationship with you that is more engaging and rewarding than any of
those video games or things."