3 Ways to Give Your Kids A Leg Up On Their Future*

When you become a parent, all you want for your children is the best for them, obviously but it’s difficult to know where to begin. When you are a parent of a baby you deal with the argument of breast vs bottle, baby led or baby wearing and co-sleeping. Everyone has an opinion on what is best, from the “professionals” to your family or even the lady down the road on her forth. But with a baby it’s as simple as finding what works best for you both. As you child gets older it gets harder because not only do you have opinions from everyone you meet but you have their constant pulling against you! But there are a few things you can to that everyone seems to universal agree will help your kids in the future. Here are three of my favourites;

Pick the Best School for Them (Within In Your Budget)
Living in a first world country means education is compulsory (as it should be for every child in the world in my opinion) but figuring out what education experience is best for you child can be difficult and in some cases, expensive. A lot of parents feel that education is something worth spending money on, other parents like to teach their kids at home. At the end of the day, it’s your decision what school and learning system works best for your child and if that means spending money it’s not anyone else’s business. I think education is important and in the future I will be making a decision on where I’m going to live based on a school choice for LM.

Let Them Work on their Talents
I firmly believe one of the worst things you can do as a parent is to not nurture your child’s natural ability or hobbies. Not every career is derived from subjects taught in school especially in those first few years. If you kid is a talented sports player, it might be worth sending them off on a sports tour. Or if your child is musically inclined encourage them to take up an instrument. This year LM has started hockey, netball and swimming at school, along with ballet on a Saturday. And she also (God help me) started to play the violin. She’s always been a musical child and I’m hoping that one day we’ll be able to invest in a piano from Markson Pianos as she has always shown an interest. We just don’t have the room quite yet,

Support Their Decisions
The best thing you can do to give your child a leg up on the future is to support their decisions about everything. If they want to go to after school clubs, let them, if they don’t, that’s fine too. If they want to study dance but you feel they should have a “proper” career you can only advise but support what they ultimately decide. Support everything they do in life, support their sexual orientation, be their biggest cheerleader. It’s not always going to be exactly what you want but it’s their life and you can’t live it for them. By supporting them completely will forge a great relationship between you as they journey into adulthood. I feel so lucky every day that my parents supported both my good and bad decisions, and now I can trust them completely. I can only hope 20 years down the line LM feels the same about me.