Parenting is never easy, I know, I raised three children. Two boys and one girl. As a married parent, a single custodial parent, a parent.
In working with parents for 30 years, I have come to believe that the best parenting is not so much about reading every book or listening to all the so called experts, it is about perspective. How you approach your world or parenting. How you see the process and how to get them launched into life.
There is a pervasive belief that the pathway to success is guided by determining what is wrong or weak and then fixing those weaknesses. Stopping kids from failing. Standing in their way when they do stupid. Pointing out every bad thing that might happen if. Warning and pointing out every failing because it might end in disaster.
Parenting does NOT exclude that but it is not about that. It is about the future and trajectory. Aiming at a clear vision of what is possible if a child discovers their talents and builds strong positive character.
“Mental health” begins with a diagnosis of “mental illness” and then “therapy” to treat people. Therapists say they want to know why people are depressed in order to help them become happy. The human resources departments in corporations are primarily focused on rehabilitation, or helping employees’ deficiencies. The process has been inverted.
This focus on finding faults and fixing them as the pathway to success is misguided. The way to find success is to study success, health, optimal functioning, and what works. It is to ask why people excel.
Happiness, health, and success have their own patterns, elements, and DNA. If we want to learn or discover why a corporation or system is performing, we don’t do that by studying failing businesses. If we want to discover how to help students graduate, we need to study those students who are graduating and succeeding. We look for Evidence of Talent and Character.
- Study your children and talk about what you see when they do good, positive and right actions.
- When you see them behave in an exceptional way, talk about it. Ask them how it feels to do something above average. What it could mean f them got to do that something every day at work as a possible career option.
- Observe actions of character. Ask them why behaving in a strong and decent way towards others matters. Ask them why they acted in a moral way?
- Parenting is observing and studying where a child is exceptional and finding ways to help them develop those talents to a future where that becomes their life.
What is your primary mindset as a parent? Fear of failure and doing everything you can to stop your child from failing OR desire and determination to help your child discover their own amazing pathway and encouraging them to impact the world with their amazing God-given talents in a character driven way?
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