Tag: attention

Rules of being a good parent

Every parent wants what is best for their kids. These “rules” are something quick I thought about for my 3-year old and 1-year old. The rules will grow and modify as they get older (such as teaching them to be respectful, responsible, and have good work ethic, talking about philosophy, etc). But for now, with my limited experience as a parent, I feel these are a good start for any new parent. Read below and let me know your thoughts in the comments section!

Rules of being a good parent:

1. Be interested in them and give them your attention…When you’re with them, be PRESENT. Don’t be on your phone or watching tv. Don’t think about work. Ask them questions and actively listen to them.

2. Don’t be afraid to say no…kids shouldn’t feel entitled to anything. When you said no, stick to your word. Don’t give in because they’re throwing a tantrum. It’s always going to be easier to give them what they want, but is that helping them in the long run?

3. Teach them that actions have consequences – whether those are good or bad consequences depends on the action.

4. Support their interests. You may not like whatever they happen to be into at the moment, but if it’s not hurting them, support them. Be interested in what they’re interested in, even if you have to fake it. Let them be themselves and explore things on their own without you influencing them to like/dislike something. They should figure that out on their own.

5. Tell them you love them. They should know how much they mean to you and they should feel loved and supported. Tell them you love them and that you’re proud of them everyday.

Praise the effort

We tend to simplify things in our heads, wanting to take whatever is the easiest route. We do this in many things, including looking at results. But what should be focused on instead is the effort the individual is giving to get the results.

There are two problems when only focusing on the end result…

First, if we only focus on the end result, maybe we aren’t challenging ourselves enough. For example, I should almost always win when facing an elementary student in basketball – and I’m not even good at basketball. But when you lower your standards just so you can win, it defeats the purpose of playing the game. At that point, why measure anything at all?

Second, when we focus on results only, we remove the element of luck from our environment. Annie Duke talks about this in her book Thinking in Bets. I can play a hand of poker perfectly according to the probability of what gives me the best chance at success and still lose the hand. Or, vice versa, I can play a hand incorrectly and still win. But if we’re only looking at the result, that may alter our way of thinking and cause us to play according to our emotions instead of what is mathematically the most likely way to win. It’s important to remember that we can only control our actions, not the actions of others, our environment, or “luck.”

So instead of focusing on results, the real question should be: “What did you do to maximize your potential?” It’s ok to ask our children if they won the game, got an A on the test, etc., but make sure we don’t praise the result. We need to focus all of our attention/praise on their efforts. What work did they put in to achieve those results? Did they try their best? (And remember, more is not always better. So if they were “studying” all night before a test and didn’t do well, maybe it would be better to have a shorter timeframe to study intensely and then get a good night of sleep.)