Self-Devpt. Nuggets™

What would it take to have one’s child grow up and become a sports superstar, like Michael Jordan or a famous personality like Larry King? History has shown that it is possible to deliberately coach children, from a very early age, to develop their unique skills and talents towards excelling as adults. The Williams sisters in tennis and the Jackson 5 are two examples that readily come to mind. And it is also worth noting that at least one parent provided the driving force and the direction for the children to follow until they arrived.

Help Your Child Choose The Right Life Goal

As a parent I dream daily of seeing my children actualize their full potentials as adults, to become the best they can be. They may or may not become famous, but I’d like them to live their lives in a manner that will enable them command the respect and admiration of those they relate with.

But just thinking or dreaming won’t do any good. Reading the stories of the growing up years of the Williams sisters for instance, it’s clear that their father played a great part in preparing them to mount the world professional women’s tennis stage and begin to dominate it. Years of back breaking hard work were invested until they were ready.

You don’t of course need to set a goal as grand as winning Wimbeldon titles for your kids. But you do need to work with them to identify challenging ones they would like to achieve.

To do this successfully, you must have spent quality time with each one, to know what interests her or gets her juices flowing.

Make Sure You Help Them Push Their Dreams, and NOT Yours

Parents can sometimes let their emotions cloud their judgement where the child has to decide what she wants to be in life. That’s why some individuals become adults and then suddenly undertake a radical career change to pursue alternatives they are more comfortable with.

The above is a major reason why trying to live out our fantasies through our kids will not work. Neither will attempting to use them to correct mistakes we feel we’ve made in the past.

The best thing to do is to carefully nurture the creative talents and abilities we identify in each of our kids, and show them how to improve over time.

Be Patient!

Coaching one’s kids to develop their unique talents and abilities can however be easier said than done.

That’s because it can literally take years before the work done begins to yield results – depending on the specific area of endeavour.

What’s more, if you’ve ever had to coach a child in a real world situation, you’ll know that unless she’s really interested, it can get quite frustrating.

But that’s not even the main problem.

The major challenge is that kids tend to have short attention spans and rapidly shifting interests.

So today, they could be excited about one subject or activity, and then one week later they’d have moved on to something else. Only with time will they gradually discover where their passions truly lie.

Final Words

Your role will be to guide your kids through the above mentioned process.

How well you do so will likely determine the results they get. If you do badly, they’ll probably end up as confused and dissatisfied young adults.

Nothing focusses the mind better than clarity of purpose.

Which is why once a child achieves a firm understanding of what she should be doing to actualize her full potential, she may never need help in that area again.

So, that’s the stage you need to get your child to in life. Once there, it will be up to her to make the most of the opportunites that appear, or that she creates!