What is the most important thing a parent need to teach his child so he/she will live a happy life” - ecoTrain Question Of The Week
The most important thing that a parent, or indeed a teacher, can teach a child is that happiness is a choice.
Every morning I used to have tears (from the girls mainly) about going to school, that it was going to be a bad day from the outset.
My eldest used to come home from school claiming it was a good day, but by the next morning she'd have 'forgotten' and the rigmarole of getting her in the school door would continue.
She'd run away at the school gates, hold on tight to the railings on the steps up to the door determined that the day would not go well.
When either me or the head teacher finally convinced her to go into school, she became the angel of the classroom, never putting a foot wrong but even so, she never seemed to enjoy school according to her good self.
My youngest also started school this year and followed suit on her big sister's behavior and had to be walked into her classroom and she didn't want to let go of me.
So what changed?
I started to teach them it was their choice whether to have a bad or a good day at school.
It didn't matter if there was sisterly bickering at home.
It didn't matter if I turned sergeant major barking orders to get them out of the door.
It didn't matter if there were tears and tantrums.
I told them every day:
When you go through the school door, you can decide whether to have a good day or bad day. That is a decision in your control.
Sure that day might not go exactly as you planned, but if that decision is made, things that might make a bad day are forgotten quickly, like water off a ducks back.
If a bad day is decided from the offset, every little niggle and imagined niggle will plague the day.
So the change in teaching my children this?
For the past month, they have been going to school much better and coming out beaming and actually talking about their day at school and how exciting it has been.
I am amazed at the change, better start implementing it myself...
Happiness is a choice.
And it can start with helping a child decide whether they want good days or bad days at school.
@Ecotrain
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This is so so right and I am so glad you wrote this answer. Happiness is indeed a choice we need to make if we want to be happy and if we make that choice, our perspective of everything around us changes for the better. Great post @hopehuggs <3
I will read everyone else's response now, see what other gems of advice I can pick up. I attend all sorts of parenting workshops to try and get all the best advice I can, so will be brilliant to read more and implement. I believe that perspective though can make all the difference.
This part really stood out to me, and not just because it was already in quote form :P
It applies to everything in life, something I've had to remind myself of these past few months. We are never in control over the situations we are placed into or the circumstances we're dealt, but what we will always have control over is how we react to those things or how we decide to carry on with our day after those things have happened. Happiness comes from within, it is merely affected, not caused by, external factors. :)
yes, found this great image on Facebook, but didn't know the source, so didn't include it on here. It says:
I absolutely agree, it is how we choose to see external factors. I think it is a lesson I would really have appreciated as a child, as the earlier this knowledge the happier the overall life and maybe better life decisions made too.
You and I both! Would have saved me years and years and years of seemingly perpetual unhappiness! :P
Prepare him/her for adult life. That is the task of parents which 99% fail at.
That means teaching discipline, critical thinking, responsibility, fighting (confrontation physically & verbally), how to have relationship, how to maintain one & how to build a business.
Impossible to do that without a masculine father & a feminine mother.
Later today @eco-alex will open up the question to everyone under tag #qotw (question of the week), if you wanted to expand your answer into a steemit post.
Personally, I think it a stronger thing to do to walk away. Fighting and arguing can also do an exponential amount of emotional damage. I know this through, unfortunately, personal experience. Self-defence, on the other hand is taught and the situations where it is acceptable.
Of course it can do damage, and you better make sure it ain't you who is the one receiving it. Would you like your children to be hurt, raped or killed? Surely you don't. Fighting has to be learned, some people can't be argued with.
Actually arguing with your attacker is a surefire way that he will increase his attacks because he smells that you are too weak to fight.
This is one of the reasons why I said you need both parents. Mothers don't see why violence is required.
The lesson you taught your girls may be the most valuable lesson they learn this year. Instilling in them that how you approach a situation will have a direct correlation as to the outcome is a lesson best learned at a young age.
Yes, the school actually teaches about choices. Asking whether decisions or actions are a good choice and talking through them and the consequences of those choices. I try to carry that on at home. In the same way, I believe happiness is a choice. It is there within always.
wow thats such an incredible story..
IM so curious.. HOW did you teach them that happiness is a choice? Did you just explain it to them, or somehow demonstrate it?
Congrats on being a super cool mum!
I got them to test it out. Go into school feeling 'meh' one day and the next day go in convinced it will be a good day and see the difference. It worked. The teachers have a big thing about teaching choices, so I guess I was lucky in that they understood what I was trying to say. The teachers also hear me say it to them, when they are having niggles about going in and take my lead as well.
that is awesome.. love it!
Excellent strategy friend, who better than parents can help in the orientation of our children on the way to happiness and not only can apply at school, but at every moment of their lives, to make it a habit :)
It is a habit I wished I learned as a child, not one now I'm older, but I can try and help instill it in my children now.
Thanks for your post. As a teacher, I really appreciate it. In our morning announcements, the principal always ends with " Make it a great day or not, the choice is yours." Children need to understand that their choices are very important. Whether to do their homework or not, whether to befriend this child or not, whether to wear the blue shirt or the red one; they are all choices that they make no matter how trivial they may seem.
I like the sound of that principal. I have always tried to let my kids make choices from an early age. We often raise a smile with our combined eclectic dress sense.