4 Things to Do to Encourage Your Child to Be a Good Person*
As I mentioned in my post about Why I Don’t Think I’ll Have Any More Kids, I had an idea in my head of how I was going to raise my daughter. Personally, I feel like part of my job as a parent is to ensure she grows up to be a good person, which if I’m perfectly honest, is hard in today’s society, but I’m trying. I wan’t nothing more than LM to grow up to be a good person, to be kind, polite and helpful. I don’t care what job she does, where she lives or what her sexual orientation is, as long as she can have courage and be kind (as Cinderella would say).
It’s never too early to teach your child how to be a good person, but children mainly learn by example so as long as you’re practising what you preach you’re starting with the best foot forward. But here are 4 other ways to encourage your child to be a good person from a young age;
Enforce Manners
Yeah “enforce” is a strong word, but the amount of children these days that don’t use manners astounds me. Manners have always been a huge thing for me. Growing up my parents weren’t as big as they should have been on manners, I was a little bit of a spoilt brat until I had to make my own way in the world and it did me no favours. Since LM could talk (which was basically before she could walk) I engrained politeness and manners into her, and now it’s something strangers comment on. Politeness and humility can get you so far in life and the art of manners seems to be getting lost these days.
Nurture Empathy
In the same vein, when LM is sad or angry about something I try my hardest to encourage her to imagine how she would feel in someone else’s shoes. It’s not easy for a 6 year old to do, but it’s an important life lesson in a way to understand how someone reacts if it’s different from you. I’ve always been interested in human psychology and explain why someone reacts in a situation. My nephew is completely different to LM and she sees him struggle with situations she sails through. This is why nurturing her empathy is something I’ve had to stick with to help explain things to her when she’s even been as young as 2.
Teach Her to Build People Up
My worst nightmare is for LM to become one of these women who tears others down to make herself feel better. The society she’s going to live in is tough and it’s very competitive. I have to deal every day with people standing on me to get higher in the industry I work in. It sucks and I don’t want my daughter to be like that. I want her to support everyone, not just other women, not just her friends. Everyone deserves to feel good about themselves, especially for their achievements and everyone needs help sometimes to achieve their goals.
Encourage Helping People Around Her
LM and I talk about less fortunate people all the time. I see it as one of the ways to teach her to be thankful for all she has. It’s a hard lesson to learn that there are children in the world the same age as LM who have nothing, who don’t even have clean water and here she is about to go to Florida for the 5th time. Yes, I work hard so we can, but those children in 3rd world countries have parents who work hard too. Of course, this is an extreme case. I want her to always be humble. She gives toys and clothes away she doesn’t use, even to families in our town who aren’t as lucky as she is.
Of course, helping people can start at home. I want her to want to help around the house without being asked, just little things like picking up toys, putting plates in the sink and washing in the hamper. I want her to be the first to volunteer to help at school, help teachers, her friends and younger children. These little things build up into big things that she can carry through life.
Charity work is a rewarding way to help people and you can take part in The Big Brekkie for Christian Aid week, this short video will give you a little more information about it.
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