Bringing out your child’s best by Michael Grose

It is natural for parents to compare their children with other children.

We are always for benchmarks to measure our children’s behaviour, development and learning.

This is unhelpful as every child is different.

It can cause anxiety particularly when our children don’t quite measure up.

The basic job of every parent is to bring out the best in their children.

We need to go on a treasure hunt to find and bring out their best behaviour, best attitudes, best character and best coping skills.

That means we need to have our antennae up for their positive traits, strengths and best qualities.

Here are two examples of parents who are intent on bring out the best in their children:

A mum at a recent parenting seminar told how her 4 year old son would routinely hurt his twelve month old sister. Rather than over-reacting this mum brought out her son’s best behaviour. She let him know that she needed him to be ‘good big brother’ and carefully explained how he could do this. She then orchestrated opportunities for him to help.

He fetched things for her, shared picture books and looked out for her when mum was around. He stopped hurting his sister when he saw that he could be helpful. He didn’t need to prove that he was better than her now that he saw a way of helping.

This mum cleverly found a way to bring out her son’s best behaviour.

Another mum sold me how she sowed seeds of possibility in her children.

When they showed a positive trait or strength she made a fuss and said that they were really good at……. She had her antennae up for the strengths rather than weakness and deficits.

There are two keys for parents who want to bring out the best in their children.

1. Avoid comparing your child with other children. It is counterproductive and makes us focus on deficits of our own child.

2. Have your antennae up for children’s strengths and positive traits and create opportunities for children to bring out their best.

This is really important during your child’s impressionable Opportunity Years (before adolescence) when kids take their cues from their parents.

We need to make the most of the window of opportunity that childhood presents to bring out the best in children.

by Michael Grose