Raising Successful Children

           Everyone wants to be a great parent, but what are some of the best ways to raise happy and successful children? The optimal parent is one who is involved, but not too involved, one who is responsive to their child’s needs and sets high expectations, but respects their child’s independence. Children of these “authoritative” parents perform better academically, physically, and socially. By not being overly involved, your child will develop higher confidence and motivation.

In one study, a researcher gave children a simple puzzle to solve and only some of the children were told how bright and capable they were. Children who were not given the praise were more motivated to tackle more difficult puzzles, showed higher levels of confidence and greater overall progress in puzzle-solving. These results show that praising talents and abilities actually decreases a child’s confidence because they risk losing their status by trying more difficult puzzles. Other studies have shown similar findings, for example, supporting a child’s independence and limiting parental involvement results in better academic and emotional outcomes.

Parents of successful and happy children did not do for the child what the child could do or could almost do themselves. Children face challenges everyday that they must learn to overcome on their own without their parent taking over. Parents must understand that their children need to experience successful failures, or failures that the child can live with and grow from. Depriving children of challenges also deprives them from learning the skills they’ll need to survive in life. Not everything in a child’s life is always going to go according to plan, so parents must learn to accept this and allow their child to be independent.

Overparenting can be detrimental to a child’s confidence, motivation, and independence. Children flourish when their environment is reliable, consistent, available, and noninterfering. Allowing children to make mistakes can be anxiety-provoking for parents, but parents must learn to control their anxiety to allow their children to manage the given situation on their own. Unhappy and unfulfilled parents are more likely to be prone to overparenting, so make sure your needs are also met in order to be the very best parent you can be. Happy parenting!

Click here to read a more in-depth article on this topic from the New York Times!