5 Tips For Parents To Raise A Good Child

Many parents focus attention on their children’s grades and extracurricular activities, such as by making sure kids study, do their homework, and get to soccer practice or dance lessons prepared and on time. But all too often, we forget to put time and effort into nurturing another component of child success and development one that is just as important, and perhaps even more essential, than good grades, awards, and trophies being a good person.

It can be easy to forget the importance of countering the pervasive messages of instant gratification, consumerism, and selfishness prevalent in our society. If we want to raise children who are pleasant company and genuinely nice people, we can help guide our kids toward habits and behaviors that promote positive character traits like kindness, generosity, and empathy for those who are less advantaged or who need help.

* Nurture Empathy in Your Child

Emotional intelligence and empathy, or the ability to put oneself in someone else’s shoes and consider their feelings and thoughts, is one of the most fundamental traits in good people. Studies have shown that having a high emotional quotient that is, being able to understand one's own feelings, the feelings of others, having self-control, and being able to control one's own emotions is an important component of success in life. To encourage empathy in your child, encourage your child to talk about her feelings and make sure she knows that you care about them. When a conflict occurs with a friend, ask her to imagine how her friend might be feeling and show her ways of managing her emotions and work positively toward a resolution.

* Encourage Them to Lift Up Others

While stories about kids engaging in bullying and other bad behavior often make headlines, the truth is that many kids quietly perform good deeds in the ordinary course of their lives, whether it’s making a friend feel better when he’s down or pitching in at a community center. As you encourage positive behaviors such as doing something to make someone’s day better (even something as small as patting a friend on the shoulder when they're sad), be sure to talk about what negative effects behaviors like gossiping or bullying have on both sides (both those who are bullied and those who do the bullying), and why and how it hurts people.

* Teach Them to Volunteer

Whether your child helps an elderly neighbor by shoveling the sidewalk or helps you pack some canned goods into boxes for donation to family shelters, the act of volunteering can shape your child’s character. When kids help others, they learn to think about the needs of those less fortunate than they are, and can feel proud of themselves for making a difference in others’ lives.

* Don’t Reward Them for Every Good Behavior or Act of Kindness

An important thing to remember when encouraging kids to help others is to not reward them for every single good deed. That way, your child won’t associate volunteering with getting things for himself and will learn that feeling good about helping others will be in itself a reward. That’s not to say you shouldn’t occasionally take your child out for a special treat or give him a gift for helping others AND for working hard and studying hard; kids love encouragement and thrive on parents’ approval. An occasional reward is a great way to show him how thankful you are for the good things he does.

* Teach Them Good Manners

Does your child routinely practice the fundamentals of good manners such as saying “Thank you” and “Please”? Does she speak in a polite manner to people and address elders as “Mr.” and Ms.”? Does she know how to greet people properly, and is she familiar with the basics of good table manners? Is she a gracious loser when she plays a game with friends? Remember that you are raising a person who will go out into the world and interact with others for the rest of her life. (And this little person, as she grows, will be at the dinner table with you and interacting with you every day until she leaves the nest.) You can play an important role in shaping how well-mannered your child will be.