Very Involved Parents (VIP)

Living skills are essential for everyone to learn in order to survive in this world. There’s no doubt this has to be instilled into our young ones at an early age. There are many simple ways in teaching your kids living skills from the range of daily life to emergencies.

The easiest place to get them started is to give them the responsibilities of doing small chores by themselves. Train them to make their bed before and after sleep while tidying their own room every week. After meals, teach them to wash up their own dish or wash together with them. Teach them to tie their own shoes lace or their own hair for girls as well as choosing their own clothing that they want to wear. While at road, teach them on road safety and let them practice crossing the road slowly on their own when you think they are old enough. Such little decision makings would help them to develop thinking skills to solve bigger issues.

When you see there’s improvements or good job done, don’t forget to compliment them and encourage them to keep up their good job. You may introduce to them a bigger responsibility task like preparing a meal together or washing laundry or the car together. You can let them start keeping pets as this will teach them to take care of others too by caring for the pet’s cleanliness and its house as well as it basic needs. Spring cleaning is a good activity for the whole family to get together and also train your kids to sweep or wipe or mop and clean the whole house!

Living skills doesn’t only need to be learnt from home but also in the outdoors. Get them to join in camping or hiking or adventurous outdoor activities which they can be expose to the wild nature life and learn even more basic living skills! You may also bring them out for a road trip or picnic with family together or go traveling around the world. This will also help them to get expose to other cultures and meet more people from all walks of life. They would be able to gain more knowledge and wisdom from each trip. Get them to note down their experiences or any interesting events on a diary which you can get them to keep daily.

Books are also a good hobby for them to teach them living skills while improving on their knowledge and language. Get your kids socialize more with enthusiastic adults whom they can emulate from and mingle with other children more as this would teach them how to treat others better and to care while appreciating what they have in their life today.

As parents, your guidance towards your children in learning living skills is very essential. With the correct upbringing, your children will grow to be a knowledgeable and responsible person!

The person we are today normally is the result of our past experiences. Most of us are shaped through our values learnt and characters built by our parents when we were young. As children can easily pick up things when they are young, it is important for parents to build your children’s character during this period of time. It’s no doubt that there are many bad habits that your child might pick up which can influence their behavior but you can minimize the effects of these bad habits by building a good and strong foundation in your child so that they will not be easily swayed.

Children who do not possess a solid foundation usually end up lacking confidence and anti-social in the future as they feel they are neglected and not given enough attention and love by their parents. They might also have psychological issues like depression which leads them to think that they are not important to anyone at all or lack of an aim in society which can be dangerous.

They might also trust others easily and end up being cheated. This can be due to a lack of exposure to the real world resulting in them being not familiar with the differences between right and wrong which leads them to think that everyone is trustworthy. They might also do unhealthy activities or get involved in the wrong group in a desperate bid to gain attention from their parents.

On the other hand, if your children are brought up with a solid foundation and proper characters, they are definitely able to differentiate between right and wrong. They will not be thirsting for more attention or love by parents as they know they have to earn them properly. They know how to bring themselves around in society and have confidence in themselves. Their confidence is their driving force behind building their life to be a responsible and reasonable person who can be trusted and respected. Although they might make mistakes once in a while, they have the guts to admit them and correct themselves so that they will not repeat it again. They will also hold firm to their beliefs and not be easily influenced by external factors.

Parents play an important role in setting a good example and building your children’s character from young. Spend more time looking after and parenting rather than be in the office working. By listening and paying attention to them, parents can have a clearer picture of what’s going on and fix problems before they become serious. Your child will also look forward to your company and refuge should matters arise. Encouragement is the key to building their character and remember, this cannot be done overnight so it is important to have patience.

Leaders are not born but are trained to be one. This is especially true if they are developed with the correct leadership qualities since young. Parents play an important role in this task.

In fact, being a good leader is not tough. To start, cultivate reading habits in them. Reading not only helps in improving their language skills and communication skills but also teaches them moral values. This indirectly helps to boost their confidence in socializing with other people. They also learn to think positively and would be able to solve matters on their own while learning to do things in a systematic manner.

Make your children believe in themselves and accept themselves as who they are. Let them know that they should not bow to peer pressure but they should have the integrity to protect themselves. Make them understand that they would need to compromise for others and the reasons of doing so in order to you’re your children appreciate what they have. Meanwhile, make them take responsible of their own actions and make them learn to do simple things on their own too. From a very tender age, teach them to listen instead of getting rage and shouting.

Let them experience different activities be it from solo or in groups especially in competitions to encourage them to express themselves and face the result be it whether they win or loose, boost their confidence by giving advices which help them to do better or improve more on the next round. Involve them with different people from all life of works for a better exposure.

You may try to treat them as a leader by designing opportunities at home for them or discuss on situations that arises at anywhere be it from school to the news. Leadership training is another alternative which can be implemented on your child but when you think they are mature enough to attend.

Don’t forget to set as an example to your children as they will get motivated when they hear true incidence happening especially to their own parents. You may also want to introduce to your child other leaders to enable them to pick a mentor for them to emulate. You would never know you could end up being the one they are emulating! Wondering how you would know the results? Look out for signs like having their friends seeking for your child’s opinions or your child got selected as the class leader or captain in a team or your child is being accused of being bossy and got disciplined for being a distraction in class!

Have you ever heard parents praying for their children’s future spouses; hoping that their future life partner is a well-rounded person that will take care of your children after you’re gone? Remember the late Princess Diana? She changed her son, Prince William to be a well-rounded individual fit for the crown as she opened his view of the world by exposing him to the outside world rather than under the royal family’s protection.

It’s important to show your children plenty of love and affection. By cuddling or hugging them, you can make them feel secure and safe being around you. Allow them to show their emotions reasonably for they are human beings, not robots. Let them express themselves as long as they aren’t completely out of control or being destructive. Try not to force them to pen up their emotions as this will cause problems.

Give them a little responsibility, for example let them help around the house. Simple tasks like preparing meals or cleaning their rooms can help them to take the initiative in being responsible. Communicate with your children’s school teachers to find out your children’s character and problems in school. Besides that, most teachers have experience with rowdy kids and they can possibly provide you with some opinions. At home, keep an eye on your children’s homework and assignments. Reading is also a good way to shape your children as reading will enable them to expand their horizon through different exposures and inspirations they gain from reading. Choose wisely of the reading materials on behalf of your children and encourage them to read frequently.

Polish up your children’s social skills by letting them mix around with friends or playmates. Keep an eye for any special interests your children might have, like sports, music, and cooking, dancing or even art! Let them follow their interest and have a sense of accomplishment should they succeed that they can be proud of in the future. Your children might also gain valuable experience on those fields of interest mentioned.

It is also a good idea to travel to places with your children tagging along as this can expose them to different cultures and experience different thing. Such experience can be highly entertaining and fun too! Be sure to keep your children up to date with the current issues by teaching them how to read newspapers. Watching news on TV or listening to the radio is also acceptable. This helps them to be observant and open minded while caring about others.

Last but not least, always remember to compliment good behavior and reward your children while being reasonable with punishments. Well-rounded individuals are fruits of great upbringing efforts of good parents and the extent of exposure of the individuals themselves shapes who they can be in the future.