Parenting is easy if you give into your child’s every whim, never be consistent with discipline, or simply don’t pay attention. Parenting children who strive for excellence in everything requires some tough love. And tough love is not easy; especially when it comes to the raising a motivated, educated, and successful student.
How do you, as a parent, raise a child that’s motivated to strive for excellence where their education is concerned?
Practice tough love by doing the following:
Set guidelines and rules and stick to them
When they are young, set rules about homework and study time. If they are older, it’s not too late to get started. Insist that homework is a priority before any after school activities. Limit technology because it can be a distraction.
Be prepared, however, there is going to be dissent; but don’t cave. Don’t give in to their whining and complaining. Years down the road with they graduate with honors, attend college, and secure a career, they will thank you for practicing tough love.
Praise achievement (not mediocrity)
Society is so afraid of hurt feelings, they have made it impossible to praise achievement. Awards are given for participation, and not excellence. When this practice becomes common, your children expect to be rewarded and praised for mediocrity. They learn to expect praise for tasks that should be common practice. Set expectations and when they are exceeded, praise them.
Teach them to take responsibility for their own actions
Teens love to play the blame game. You know the drill: it’s always someone else’s fault for bad behavior. Someone either coaxed them, coerced them, or talked them into doing something. It’s never their fault. It’s always the other persons: the teacher, the principal, another student. Learning to take responsibility for your own actions is one character trait that will follow them through high school and into college.
Step back and let them fail
Don’t rescue them from every difficult situation. You know the term–helicopter parenting. It’s important for them to make messes, get hurt, feel disappointment, and fail at tasks.This helps them develop life skills, achieve happiness, and be successful–the things we so desperately want to give them.
One parent summed it up well:
The reality is, we can’t “give” our children happiness and success anyway. It has to be earned. And earning things of such high value means our children will have to pay a price. We can either “love” our children into big grown up babies, still living at home at age 30 expecting mommy to swoop in and solve all their problems, or we can love them into a life of competent self-confidence by letting them experience pain, failure, disappointment, self-denial, and good old fashioned hard work.
Isn’t that what tough love is all about? Love your children so much you set rules, provide clear expectations, and allow them to fail so they can learn.