Kids are like sponges. They watch you, soak up and absorb everything you do, and then replicate it in their lives. This is why they tend to do what they see, not what you tell them.
If you want to raise well-balanced happy kids that everyone admires, then your home has to be both warm and nurturing. While this is not an easy feat to perform, it can be done if you are willing to make an effort and put in the work. Here are a few tips to help you get started.
Have More Fun Activities
Although kids tend to want their computers, games, and TV, they often need a nurturing environment. This means a safe, secure home where there’s a lot of joy, happiness, acceptance, and love.
One of the easiest ways to replicate this is by ensuring that there are many bonding activities in the home. Get the kids to participate in board games, card games, help out in the kitchen and around the house, and just partake in family activities.
Laugh a Lot
As parents, you can only give what you’ve got. If you’re feeling miserable, chances are the kids will pick up on it. And if you’re happy, they’ll know. Remember, kids absorb everything they see.
This means happy parents set the tone for a happy family. So, do the things that make you happy. Do you like watching funny TV shows? By all means, do that frequently. Do you love telling or being told anti jokes? Go do more of that.
Do you like listening to music, working out, or just some other fun activity? Whatever you do that gives you joy, get your fill of it. This is the easiest way to create a fun, loving, and warm environment in the home. While it’s true that life can get in the way of this endeavor to make laughter a mainstay in the home.
Build Up Your Kids
Positive affirmations and validation are incredibly powerful tools that many parents don’t use. It’s interesting that parents are quick to criticize and rebuke their kids. But when the children do something right, they do not acknowledge their wins or celebrate them as they should.
There are kids and even adults who swear that they’ve never heard their parents tell them they were proud of them to their face. They may have heard it from their parent’s friends, but not directly from their parents. That’s not good enough.
Want to raise super-confident high achieving kids? Celebrate, validate, affirm, and praise your children when they do well. It does incredibly powerful things to their self-esteem and elevates them in ways you can’t even imagine.
Finally, learn to overlook small mistakes and determine the right teachable moments –you’ll have many of those. No one thrives in an environment of continuous criticism and negativity. And if you do that to the kids, you could end up breaking their spirits. So, be strategic with your corrections and your kids will turn out to be amazing and well-adjusted individuals.
