Mindful Parenting: Techniques for Raising Resilient and Confident Children
Parents today are working harder than ever to give their children everything they need. But, overstimulation, high expectations, and constant screen time have created an unhealthy environment for kids.
A lack of time and resources has created a world where kids don't have enough opportunities to express their creativity, learn from experience, and develop the confidence and resilience necessary to handle unexpected setbacks.
In this article, I'll share how mindful parenting helps kids become resilient and self-assured adults.
STEP 1: Mindfulness Training
If your goal is to raise resilient and confident children, it's important to start early.
Research shows that the quality of the parent-child relationship is one of the most powerful predictors of childhood outcomes. If you want your child to learn how to handle stress and change effectively, you need to model mindfulness in the ways you interact with him or her.
Mindful parents are nonjudgmental, open to changing their own reactions, and they are able to observe themselves and their child without judging.
STEP 2: Practice Being Present
Being present is another fundamental element of mindfulness. It involves accepting both pleasant and unpleasant experiences as they occur in the present moment.
Children are very impressionable, so it's easy to feel like they see us as the source of all of their problems, or their only source of happiness.
But they don't. Kids need to see that parents are open to dealing with their ups and downs, and that they understand why some situations trigger negative emotions.
They also need to see that we have room in our lives for them.
STEP 3: Let Them Explore Their World
Kids learn best by experiencing and interacting with the world around them.
If we block them from exploring new things, it's harder for them to learn and grow. So, make sure that kids have the freedom to explore whatever interests them.
Letting your kids play with toys from their age group, for instance, will help them learn social norms, language skills, and language comprehension.
Giving them the time to play with toys that are more challenging than your own helps them practice problem solving and critical thinking.
STEP 4: Avoid Perfectionism
Perfectionism is a common problem for parents.
We want to be able to give our kids all of the things we wished we had when we were growing up.
But it's often unrealistic to expect kids to have what we didn't.
As a result, we end up trying to mold our children into versions of ourselves that we wish we were. And, that's impossible.
Our kids should see us making mistakes, struggling with a problem, and failing.
Failing teaches them important lessons about life, and how to deal with failure. We should embrace imperfection, because that's how children learn.