The Traits Your Kids will Remembery You For, Part 2

A couple of months ago I wrote that when it comes to parenting, who you are matters more than what you do. This is because who you are, even more than what you do, helps to shape your kids into the people that they will become. I identified 10 traits that Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott write about in their book, The Parent You Want to Be. Let’s look at 3 of them…

  Being an affirming parent. Some parents fear that lavishing their kids will praise might give them “big heads”. Not so. Praise is most valuable in abundance. The risk of building up an oversized ego is negligible. And your child has a hole in their heart that can be filled only by their parents’ praise. If they don’t receive enough affirmation from you, they will go their whole life trying desperately to find it. They will try their best, even as an adult, to do anything they can to please you and win your affirmation—and eventually the affirmation of everyone else. Nothing ensures the likelihood of an insecure adult more than a child who doesn’t receive enough affirmation growing up.      Being a patient parent. A recent study by York University revealed that patience topped the list of skills parents thought they needed most. And impatience was the number one attitude they did not want to pass on to their children. Patience is one of the most important traits a parent can master in raising kids. Why? Because first of all, kids are experts at trying their parents’ patience—whether they mean to or not. And secondly, it’s too easy to lose our patience as parents. But patience is so important—in fact, it is impossible to be a loving parent without an abundance of patience.   Being an attentive parent. From the moment of birth, children cry out for attention—literally. As they grow older, their requests for attention become much more sophisticated. As a parent, you need to become adept at deciphering exactly what they are saying. Kids don’t advertise the fact that they need your attention. They want you to give it without their having to ask. And if your child doesn’t receive the personalized attention they crave, they will eventually disengage and write you off as irrelevant. If a child does not receive the attention that only their parent can give, they will find that attentiveness somewhere else—usually from their peers.   These are just 3 of the 10 traits that we’ll be looking at. Next time: being a visionary, connected, and celebratory parent.