How To Inculcate And Develop Positive Qualities In Your Child

Sharing Personal Experience On Children Development

First of all, Welcome and Congrats! Congrats because according to a survey only two in every five parent in the modern occidental society(comprising generally of countries of Europe and America) take steps to consciously develop positive qualities in their child and you are one of them.Its strange that about 60% of parents are not actively involved in the development of their children and leave it on chance(or rather destiny) to shape their child's behavioural traits and mould them as per their linking.Its sad but true.These parents must awake from their deep slumber and realise that their child is like a rough diamond which must be polished or the true luster of it will never appear.Chance and Destiny will not do it,you as a parent will have to do it, for your own child, for yourself and for the society as a whole.I can just hope that my post reaches those millions of ignorant parents so that they realise the need of the hour.

Lets move on! Most of you will agree with me when I say that present structured education system is not enough to develop and strengthen your child's innate character.So we parents have to take up the responsibility to develop positive traits in our child  In this post I will discuss with all you parents,  the perfect occasions and techniques to nurture your child with the positive qualities like honesty,kindness,courtesy etc.All right then! Lets begin.

The following step wise approach should be followed in order to instill the right qualities in your child.These steps are essential part of every child development programme, so you must follow them diligently.

First,

1. Actively Monitor Your Child: This is the most basic thing a parent could do.Silently monitor him,see how he reacts to different situations.Mentally, keep a note of things(or even write it down on a piece of paper) you wish to teach him based on a particular behaviour.Do not interrupt immediately.Let him do his own thing while you make a note of things you wish he could have done in a different and better way.

2. Wait for a 'Teachable Moment': Now you know the things you have to teach him, wait for the right moment.By right moment I mean a moment when your child is in learning mode.It can be anyone of the following moment:

•  When your child is curious(and asks you questions and then counter questions):You have plenty of such moments on a daily basis,don't you?

•  When your child is emotionally open to suggestions: This moments are few and far between but you have to take advantage of it when this moment arrives.Let's say a close friend of your child has fallen ill temporarily and your child is sad because he/she has no one with him to play with, now is the time to teach him lessons of kindness and compassion ,he should be taught to display courtesy and kindness to his ailing friend.No other time can be better than this to teach him the importance of being kind and compassionate towards others.The whole idea is to connect emotionally and teach logically.

•  Dinner table Discussions: Ronald Reagan once famously quoted 'All great change begins at the dinner table' .This quote is equally appropriate with respect to your little devil.A parent must learn to get the maximum from the dinner table chit-chats.For example you can playfully ask your little one to list all the activities he was engaged in throughout the day.I was surprised when I did this with my own kiddo.He told me everything he did in minute details (even the most naughty deeds and that too with a great sense of pride).This again goes on to show the pure innocence every little devil possesses.They are not even aware that the some of their deeds(naughty) might hurt others in one way or the other.For them its fun! At this point, we parents must intervene and take up the matter in our hands.It is our responsibility to teach them to differentiate the right's from the wrong's.This can be done in two ways which we are going to discuss next.

Besides, there are other teachable moments too, for example during morning(or evening) walks ,while visiting relatives, while watching TV,playing etc. but in my experience my little one tends to learn and follow instructions taught by me when he in is one of the above discussed learning mode.To be honest with you, experiment is the name of the game.What's working for me might not work for you but most often than not, children tend to listen and remember instructions taught to them when they are in one of the three modes discussed above, as Robert Siegler points out in his best selling child development book 'How Children Develop'. I would recommend the parents reading my blog to get a copy of this book as soon as possible.
    
Now,

 3. The Teaching: There are many different ways to teach your child, positive qualities but here are some of the most effective techniques parent can use to instill positive qualities in their little devils.These are discussed below:

•  Direct Instructions (don't always work): When was the last time you told your little one not to do something and he immediately refrained from doing it.I bet you don't remember any such moment.Because there wasn't any such moment.I wish there was.But none.Direct instructions doesn't always work.It will only lead them to become more and more stubborn.The more you stop them from doing something, the more they will doing it. It is in these kind of situations that most parent loose their temper.But wait! There is no need to rush things.There are other ways to teach your child and make him follow your instructions.The most common way to do this is by Story telling.Yes you read it right.Its story telling.Story telling plays a very important role in child development.I have worked wonders using this technique with my own little one and it never fails.

•  Story telling: Albert Einstein once said "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales".The key here is to utilize your child's creative mind to teach him the difference between the right and wrong. One thing that every child share in common is the 'Power of Imagination'. There is no point in consciously telling them not to do something as it is wrong, because they just won't listen.So don't take the direct path.Just drop a message(using story telling) in their subconscious mind that doing a particular thing is wrong.You would never see him repeat that same mistake again as if almost magically.

What you are doing here is, you are just dropping a message(using a story) in your kids sub conscious mind.Using his/her naturally gifted powerful imagination he would generate different permutations and combinations of the situation( i.e. story, which you have implanted in his mind) and eventually realise that what he has done(or has been doing) is wrong.After this you would never see him repeat the same mistake again.If story telling is not your thing(like me) then I would strongly recommend you to get a copy of 'Storytelling with Children' by Nancy Mellon.It was of great help to me. 

• Lead By Example: The next best thing you could do after story telling, is to show them the way yourself.You must lead by example.There is no point in teaching your kid the important quality of kindness, when you yourself just acted rudely with someone in front of his/her ever observing eyes.So make sure to follow the same traits which you want to inculcate in your child.

                   
You must realise that developing positive qualities in your child is the only way to make him successful in the long run.By investing time and effort in your child development now you will reap the benefits later.Your main focus should be on developing his character.The rest will take care of itself.Yes, sometimes we as a parent, have to make sacrifices for our kids too but I have realised that, nothing you do for your child is ever wasted.

After reading numerous books on child development I have realised  the importance of developing positive qualities in my child and preparing him for the game of life.I for one do not want to leave anything on chance when welfare of my child is at stake.I would also thank Paul Tough for the invaluable insight he has provided in his book 'How Children Succeed', which has completely changed my view of parenting.I would recommend it to all the parents reading this blog to take out some time from their busy schedule and read this book thoroughly.It will definitely make you a better parent and help you prepare your child in a better way.

Always remember that, we may not be able to prepare the future for our children, but we can at least prepare our children for the future.                       

I hope I was able to help all the parents reading my blog.I still remember the difficulties I had to face when I was a young parent like most of you.I did not had the luxury of so much of information about child development at my disposal then,I just had to rely on books.That's why I would like to help all the parents out there, sharing all my experiences with them so that they don't experience the same difficulties which I once had to.

It has been a pretty long post.But I would like to believe that you people enjoyed reading it.I will do my best to find a little bit of free time for my next post on child development.

Till then, See you later and Happy Parenting!