Parents aren’t given a handbook to know how to raise their kids. As parents, we hope to offer guidance that provides a solid foundation for them to find success in life as adults. Thankfully, decades of research points to certain parenting habits that are proven to work.
Research shows that how you choose to parent your child has a great bearing on how successful they become.
If you want your children to grow to be happy, healthy, successful adults, it’s simpler than you may think. While these few tips may seem somewhat obvious in their simplicity, even so, these aren’t just assumptions. They’re actually proven to work.
Here are just a few parenting tips that will encourage your child’s future success in life:
Be a Sensitive Caregiver, Especially Early-On
A child’s life experience during preschool years can carry with them into adulthood. In 2014, a study was conducted from the viewpoint of kids growing up in poverty and how they fared.
Those with parents who responded to their signals with sensitivity (promptly and appropriately) and provided a secure base from which to explore the world were more successful later in life.
Children whose parents showed a “sensitive care-giving” approach did better in academic tests. They also had healthier relationships, and greater academic achievement in their 30s.
Give your child the best start possible by offering a solid, caring foundation in the earliest years of development.
Enjoy Moments of Quality Time with Your Kids | Parenting Tips
Parents have long believed that structuring their lives around spending as much time as possible with their children is beneficial. In fact, research shows that isn’t the case at all.
Yes, spending moments of quality time with your kids is absolutely beneficial. Yet, stressing about juggling work and enough time with kids can backfire. Especially if you are exhausting yourself while valuing the quantity of time over a lesser amount of quality time.
A study conducted by Brigid Schulte at The Washington Post found that the number of hours mothers spent with their kids aged 3 to 11 predicted very little about their behavior, well-being, or levels of achievement.
Kids respond to their parents’ energy. So spend quality time with kids during times when your focus is more relaxed and you’re connecting in a more enjoyable way.
Embrace and Value Success in Terms of “Growth” over “Achievement”
How you view success tends to separate into two mindset categories. One being the belief that success is attained based on intelligence or a set of fixed attributes. The other centering on a belief that efforts to learn and grow will lead to successful results.
Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck studied these two mindsets in children and adults. She found that your individual views relating to success profoundly affect the way you approach life and what you accomplish.
She explains that believing your qualities are set (the “fixed mindset”) creates an environment where you’re always seeking and striving for approval.
In contrast, with a “growth mindset,” your innate abilities and where you are now are viewed as merely a starting point for further development. This growth mindset focuses on learning and growing. This view supports reaching success through improving and increasing efforts rather than any set ability you’re born with.
As parents, how we view success greatly affects how our children view themselves. If we value our child’s innate abilities, including intelligence, over growth and development, then our children will share that view.
Assign Chores for Later Success in Life | Parenting Tips
A Harvard Grant Study found that children who do chores are more successful as adults. In fact, children learn self-efficacy when their parents set chores as an expectation at an early age.
Julie Lythcott-Haims, former Dean of Freshmen at Stanford University and author of “How to Raise an Adult,” defines self-efficacy as “when one sees that his or her own actions lead to outcomes.” She explains that kids are more successful in life when they learn to correlate their success with their individual efforts.
She suggests we shift our focus. Many parents today focus so intently on their kids attaining the highest grades and engaging in activities that will get them into the best colleges. A more effective approach is to focus on skills that provide them with the best foundation for achieving success. We do this by providing more opportunities for them to “think” and “do.” (This is in contrast to “thinking” and “doing” for them.)
Here’s a Ted Talk video of Julie Lythcott-Haims’ talk about how to raise successful kids without over-parenting.
Along with the tips listed here, other parenting factors that lead to kids’ success in life as adults include: providing opportunities to learn social skills, teaching math at an early age, teaching perseverance and passion for long-term goals, among others.
Overall, studies show that we can very simply provide a solid foundation and encourage our child’s success in adulthood. Through our quality interactions, our own beliefs about success, and by providing our kids ample opportunities to explore the world with confidence, our children have the greatest chance of experiencing success.