SUCCESS FOR YOUR KIDS

This is the second article in barely a fortnight on the subject of children; albeit a different aspect of their welfare; shows we care a lot about them. What follows are some suggested strategies for helping to ultimately bring success into the life of a child. It’s a challenging aspect of a child’s upbringing. I can hear the groans now, including my own, since this review can be chastening; but, one trusts, at least helpful.I will not pretend that the strategies are of my own conception. In fact, they emerged from the work of researchers. I am merely taking the opportunity to share with the reader some views, and stimulate some thought, on the validity of the strategies. And they are not exclusive. Let’s leave some more strategies for another time.

Peaceful

The term ‘successful life’ has many interpretations and applications. Can we settle for – ‘a happy, purposeful and stable life, one of significant intrinsic value and in a peaceful aura of high self-esteem?’ Having sufficient money is an important component, but you don’t have to be swimming in it. Let’s start: Make them work:  A Harvard Grant Study in the USA found, in a sample obtained for its research, that the participants who achieved the greatest success had done chores as a child. That makes sense. The introduction of a systematic work programme at an early age prepares the individual for a solid work component in their future life, accompanied by a sharper sense of time management.

Read to them:  Children in this day and age are generally too distracted by other activities, especially the smartphone, to get into the habit of reading. So you read to the child. The way you do so is important. Livening up both narrative and dialogue – as in the increasingly popular audio-book - will stimulate an interest in later visual reading. The British Cohort Study tracked this with 17 000 individuals in the UK Those who, by 16 years of age, were reading voluntarily, had exhibited greater intellectual progress, and improved vocabulary, spelling and mathematics. Go out to work:  This is a controversial strategy, arguing against the time-honoured mum-stays-at-home for support, collaboration and control. But one extensive research exercise found that mum-out-at-work is effective in inducing greater self-reliance and resilience; it has its dangers though.

Tradition

Eat dinner together as a family.  Now this is one tradition that has slipped badly between the woodwork. Well done if you’re achieving it. Modern life has too much pace and pressure, often self-imposed. Whether it’s through the distraction from TV, other screen activities, reading a book, email inbox and other demands, parents find themselves too often grabbing a bite alone. The tradition of eating together is a key part of the solidity and security of family home life, that helps to form the foundation for a child’s self-confident and meaningful future life away from the table.

Enforce no screen-time:  The reader may be fed up with having to read about this one. But it’s no good my brushing it under the carpet. Cellphones, especially the ‘smart’ variety, have surreptitiously, and perhaps irreversibly, imposed an addictive pressure on the individual. In a recent survey of American teenagers, no fewer than 55 per cent admitted the addiction; basically, meaning life revolves around the device, checking for calls and messages, investigating subjects of interest, watching videos and listening to music. So, if you see a young person walking along the road and gazing with pleasure at the world around them – no mobile phone in sight - please, albeit notionally, smile a message of congratulation. And retain that heart-warming smile for every driver you see with both hands on the steering wheel.

Don’t tell them they can be anything they want in their adult life:   This strategy could be better captured in different wording, for example ‘encourage a free and ambitious vision, but guided by a healthy dose of reality.’ Given the chance, most children will daydream their way along a future career among top class athletes, footballers, musicians and actors; also video game designers. That appetite for prominence is hardly surprising, given the obsession with celebrity. It is valuable to draw attention to, and continually remind the child about the highly rewarding professions today and of the future, such as medicine and broader healthcare, teaching and design and construction across a wide range.

Encourage them to travel: Travel in childhood has been found to increase tolerance of other cultures and an increased willingness to learn and explore. It also creates greater independence and adaptability. Not every child has the chance of international travel, but much can also be obtained from homeland travel.Let them fail:  According to one psychologist, a child that is allowed – perhaps even encouraged – to fail sometimes, develops a greater ability to cope in later life, and is better equipped to apply sustained effort in difficult tasks.Your children – regardless of age - are almost everything to you in your life. Or should be. So much so that you indulge in the affectionate diminutive term ‘kids’. Perhaps it’s time to set a new trend. You’re already asking your customer for ‘50 Ema’. (lol). Time for – ‘My little lambs are off to see their Papa’. Or ‘My youngest pup is about to go to high school.’ But not piglets. We have to draw the line somewhere.

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