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Like Father Like Son, a true statement said by someone. A father plays a big role in building the personality of his kids. Traditionally, a father is supposed to be the bread earner, and a mother is supposed to be the caretaker. Well, this is not always true, but our biological development gave us these general roles that do not fit all. These days, a lot of mothers earn money and many fathers take care of the kids. In many families, earning money is still the primary responsibility of the father and taking care of kids is still the primary responsibility of the mother. In many cultures, this natural inclination of roles is not going to change anytime soon.
Being a father of a 10-year-old son, I see there are several things I have to teach my son as he is growing. It is the absolutely right to teach the most important things which will shape his personality for the rest of his life. As his age is only 10 years, I don’t think I should teach him boy specific things (though he started understanding the difference between a man and a woman.) I think this is the time to implant the seeds of being a successful person. After careful consideration of several things which I need to teach my child before 10, I picked top 5 things to mention in this article.
- Goal setting and pursuing goals with discipline – No one will disagree with me on this point. The earlier we learn goal setting, the better it is. For a kid of age 10, the goal might be learning ice skating, playing guitar, getting a #1 rank in his school grades, or something like that. My son got very impressed with Bruce Lee and wanted to use Nunchaku. He hit himself so many times he got moderate to severe injuries on his head and face. In-Spite of these injuries, he continued practicing and in a month or so he became pretty good at Nunchaku. But, when I take him to football, he barely shows interest in it. What is the difference? The difference is the choice. The first rule of goal setting is the goal must be the choice of the goal setter. As a father, you need to encourage your child to take time to find himself or herself and figure out what exactly he or she wants to achieve. Then keep on making your child adjust their goal. The next thing you need to teach your child is discipline. Discipline to pursue their chosen goal. Keep persisted until the goal is achieved.
- Managing their things and keeping them ready – Management is one of the most important skills one must learn as early as possible. For a child of age 10, management could be the management of studies, clothes, toys and stationery, pocket money, or even time. One of the most important habits of successful people is they keep their things ready. The billionaires spend millions of dollars in maintaining multiple cars with chauffeurs, costly supercomputers, and even automatic watch winders just to keeps their luxury automatic watches ready to use anytime. They want their things ready to use anytime. Until you teach them how to manage themselves and their belongings, you cannot implant the seed of a successful person.
- Using social networking sites and getting popular – Kids are rocking on social media sites, especially YouTube. One of my friend owns an animation company in London named Spiel. He told me many kids come to his office to get tutorial videos created for them. The world is moving so fast, you cannot afford to have your child lag behind. By introducing social networking sites (in the right way by making sure the kids access to content is protected) you are showing them a way to earn much more than their need of pocket money. You are showing a way to become financially independent.
- Moral values and relationships – Moral values refer to a set of principles that guide an individual on how to evaluate right versus wrong. These principles implant the seed of honesty, fairness, integrity, humanity, etc. These are all highly valuable personality traits. The age of 10 years is absolutely perfect to learn these values and the value of relationships.
- Self-respect and self-esteem – Until we love ourselves, we cannot love others. Until we see ourselves valuable, the world cannot see us that way. Giving value to self implants positive characteristics children. When your child has high self-esteem, he or she will learn to avoid the things which can pull down their reputation. High self-esteem will encourage them to do the things which bring pride to them. They will learn not to be a follower but to be a leader.
I think I have lost the last two precious years as I should have started teaching my son these things already, but almost everything is still in my hands, and I am already applying these things in my own life and consciously teaching my son. I am happy for this, because my son started moving in right direction as me.
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Photo Credit: Getty Images
Awesome work you have done here, I am very happy to read this nice post. You are a great writer and give us much information.
If you keep brushing off your goals and responsibilities or wait for the right time, you’ll never be successful and this is the same case with the kids. Kids and teens need to understand that even the best of plans won’t do any good if you don’t get moving.
Whether your child wants to join a music class or is in the process of choosing a college, stop using the word ‘later.’ Instead, encourage them to change their behavior and start taking action today.
Another thing I have taught my kids and I’m still teaching them is this: Do not believe everything you hear or read. There are negative stereotypes being forced down on our kids all over the show: like “toxic masculinity” for example. I teach my kids that not all men are a certain way, and not all women are a certain way either. There are always exceptions to every rule, and in general most people are inherently good – be they men or women.
Kids come with no rule book or operation manual. This in hindsight is a good thing. If we all did the same then kids would simply become carbon copies not just of their parents, but of each other.
No, dont teach them everything, allow them space to make mistakes, be late developers in unique areas and become specialists in others. It matters less their specific skills but rather more their abilities to be self confident, worldly and adaptable.
The path is a 1000 ways, do you your own thing.
So, are u saying such things should be taught at the age of 10, or before that age, cause… Kids are just adults in training. Play is a part of that training, but kids aren’t some special creatures that exist in some seperate reality; who should be denied exposure to, or who should be protected from, the world they live within. The best time for them to learn how to interact with that world is now… We, as adults, just have to manage their exposure so that they can learn base concepts, first principles, first, rather than just being thrust,… Read more »
Agree with all except social media.
Can’t agree with exposing kids to what amounts to a swill hole of verbiage.
Kids have had their lives destroyed by that venue, and it is more a situation of “group think” by the most dysfunctional among us, then it is a productive venue for positive growth.
I agree with you. Even as an adult you have to be careful about social media. Also, Facebook requires a minimum age of 13, so this article shouldn’t even be mentioning social media
Awareness of social media is different than free participation. There are basic concepts that kids should be made aware of that they can later apply to their use of certain tools and social constructs, or environments, in a way that protects them from danger. It’s the difference between being a helicopter parent, and doing everything for a child, and allowing a child to be exposed to ideas as they become capable of handling them, so they can do things for themselves; and knowing when that is, as it differs per child. Any time a child is exposed to an new… Read more »
I can certainly see your point on this matter, but there is also a time and place. The trick for me, with my kids, was to expose them to such once they had the ability, knowledge, and strength to understand it without it influencing negatively their growth. I would use the example of pornography. Expose an adult male to porn after he has developed a healthy understanding of the dynamics of relationships, has learned how to form healthy relationships with women and it become little more then sexual entertainment. Expose a child prior to that, and it can become the… Read more »
Either you introduce social media to your kids or someone else (most probably his classmates) will introduce it. You choose which one is better?? I strongly believe if we parents introduce social media (which is a blessing as well as a deadly monster) then we can save our children from its monster side and can take blessings of social media or internet. This is a serious concern, give it a good thought. Either you open of door (right side) of the internet or someone else will open it (probably the wrong side of the door).