Four Ways to Promote Success in Your Children

By Kassandra Vaughn 

The seeds of success are planted deep within the hearts and minds of children. Whether those seeds reap a harvest depends largely upon the nurturing and care given to those seeds in the soil of children’s minds. If your goal, as a parent, is to foster lifelong success in the lives of your children, you must implement a lifelong success education strategy that consistently builds a foundation for all success.

Here are four ways to promote success in your children:

Success Strategy #1:Encourage Curiosity

Children, like adults, have natural affinities for things. When you notice your child is interested in a specific subject, area or discipline, encourage it by allowing your child to ask any and all questions about it. Be as eager to discover the answers as your child is. Go online with your child and do extensive research. Read books on the subject. Take field trips. Make his/her interests an Indiana Jones expedition and you will foster the belief in him or her that anything is possible.

Success Strategy #2: Focus Imagination

Extraordinary success requires focus. Teach your children focus as early as possible through dedicated time to one activity at a time. For example, set aside a specific amount of time to play with Legos. If your child wants to jump to another activity, have him or her put the Legos up first (i.e. finish what you start) and then move on to another activity. For older children, encourage reading but make it a focused task. Use reading guidelines such as: read in a quiet place for a certain amount of time per night. The point is to foster imagination while teaching children how to focus their talents by exploring one at a time.

Success Strategy #3: Reduce the Number of Worry Words

By the time a child is three years of age, much of what he or she believes about life, money and relationships are firmly established. If your child is three or older, pay close attention to the words you hear coming out of his or her mouth. If you hear things like “can’t”, “shouldn’t”, “It’s my fault”, “I messed up” or “I’m worried”, these are red flags that your kids have ingested worry words. It’s your job to help them unlearn those thoughts and learn a new, victorious way of thinking. Small children are great at affirming things like “I feel good!”, “I feel great!”, and “I’m a winner!” Get into a routine of teaching your children to say these things and you’ll see that, after a while, instead of saying “I can’t do it”, they’ll affirm “I can do it.”

Success Strategy #4: Teach Accountability Without Shame, Blame or Guilt

Parents learn how to parent from their own upbringing. In most cases, the way you parent is either similar to what your parents did or the exact opposite (because you didn’t like how you were raised). Either way, there are trends in parenting (both good and bad) that we learned from our parents and no where is it seen to a greater extent than in the area of discipline. The key to raising a successful child is not letting him or her do whatever he or she pleases. It’s also not about being a drill sergeant and correcting your child on every single thing he/she does wrong. The key is to discipline in a way that teaches your child responsibility and accountability without any shame, blame or guilt. Everyone makes mistakes but each mistake is an opportunity to learn and grow. Use discipline as a way to show your children that there is an opportunity to learn in everything. Keep in mind that no one learns their lessons from people who are judging them. Keep your kids open and teachable by disciplining with love, not fear.

There are many, many more success strategies to foster success within your children. The key is to be consistent, loving and supportive of the passions and interests expressed by your children. Most important of all, be the success you wish to see in your children. The greatest example of success your children will ever see and emulate is you. Teach them kindness, love, achievement and abundance by having it in your own life.