How to Nurture a Successful Child

Every parent wants their child to be successful, but what does that actually mean? It can be a difficult question, and likely means something completely different from one parent to another. Without getting overly philosophical, I will begin this post with my definition of success as I believe it’s important to establish a baseline meaning for this article.

So here it goes… What is the meaning of success?

Success implies a positive outcome specific to an individual’s single pursuit or endeavor.

For example, it was a tremendous success when Sophie earned the highest score on her math quiz.

There you have it! That is my definition. 😃  I realize there are many others out there, but this is the way I think of it, especially as we apply it to the context of child development.

Alrighty... so... if success implies a positive outcome on a single pursuit or endeavor, then what does it mean to be successful?

When thinking of successful people, we usually envision someone with lots of money and maybe even a lavish lifestyle. Although this is sometimes true, it’s not very useful in the context of child development. Set that thought aside for a moment, so we can more effectively apply this concept to children. 

A better question might be - what does it mean to be successful in childhood?

When we strip away the monetary connotations of successful adults, we can more effectively narrow in on childhood success and how we may help our child achieve it.

My definition: Successful children frequently find success in their individual pursuits or endeavors.

The key here is  frequently. Successful children learn to achieve success, and therefore apply what they’ve learned to repeatedly succeed in whatever they put their mind to. As parents, it’s our job to nurture repeated success by teaching our child the skills and traits that foster it. In fact, it’s one of the greatest skills you can give your child.

We want to empower our child with the ability to frequently achieve success in her own endeavors, but we must first develop the skills within her to provide this foundation. Just as the right ingredients are essential to a wonderful recipe, so is instilling the appropriate skills in our child to become successful. I believe the foundational traits to success are confidence, hard work, determination, and leadership.

Sounds great, right? But what can we do to develop these traits within our child?

The key is presenting our child with the appropriate challenges that stretch his current skill sets while still being within his present abilities to complete. Goldilocks provides a perfect metaphor in helping us find the appropriate challenges for our child.😜

Stumbling upon a cabin in the woods, Goldilocks enters the bears’ kitchen and proceeds to sample three bowls of porridge. One too hot, the other too cold, and one just right. She leaves both the porridges that are too hot and too cold and proceeds to happily devour the porridge that is just right. She then identifies the chair and ultimately the bed that are also just right for her.

Envisioning our child as goldilocks and the porridge/chairs/beds as a metaphor for potential challenges, we want to find the challenges that are just right for our child. One that is too cold/too easy won’t teach our child that hard work and determination bring about success and one that is too hot/ too hard may overwhelm our child and lead to frustration and a desire to give up.

As parents, we must learn to identify what challenges are “just right” for our child at each developmental stage.

A quick note of reassurance - this takes learning on our part as parents too. We’ve all provided challenges that are either too easy or too hard for our child, and these are good learning experiences to take note of and refine for the future. The key is striving for challenges that are just right, even though we won’t be able to achieve this 100% of the time. Occasionally exposing your child to something too easy or too hard may actually be beneficial as something easy can be reassuring and something too hard can build humility and assist with goal setting. That being said, challenges that are “just right” are what we should strive for, and those that are too hard or too easy will naturally come out of this pursuit.

So what is the benefit of “just right” challenges?

Teachers call this process of helping a child develop skills that are initially too difficult “scaffolding” which means first demonstrating how something is leaned or done by the parent, then you practice with your child many times and gradually allow the child to complete larger and larger parts of the activity independently, until finally the child can complete the task without adult help.  This initial detailed modeling and gradual release of responsibility builds confidence and success for the child.

A child’s brain is like a sponge, absorbing new information at an astoundingly fast rate. In reality, they make important neural connections as they learn new skills and push the limits of their current understanding. Think of a city with highways and roads. When a child frequently repeats a task, he uses similar neural “highways” that were built prior, but when he learns something new, he lays the pavement for new roads or neural connections that he can use at a later date. More highways and roads mean greater efficiency in a city just like more, new neural connections mean a more capable and intelligent brain.

Aside from pure brain development, there are very important psychological benefits too. When a child completes something at the limit of her current ability - maybe right before she was about to give up - she finds great satisfaction in this achievement and subconsciously reassess her limits internally to push herself harder next time. Not only is she becoming more capable by establishing new neural connections, she is expanding her comfort zone to take on more difficult future challenges too.

Circling back to the traits mentioned earlier, this process builds confidence, determination, hard work and leadership. Hard work and determination are exactly what a “just right” challenge requires. In pushing through the unknown to achieve success, your child will likely be overcome with excitement and happiness, both of which are natural feelings we receive when overcoming something that stretches our limits. Just think of the last time you succeeded in something new. I recently repaired a broken window motor in our Subaru, and that delight carried my emotions high throughout the rest of the day! While likely trivial for an experienced mechanic, it was entirely new for me and showed that with a little grit and determination, I could figure it out and save a pretty penny in the process. It’s a wonderful feeling, and children are at the developmental stage to experience satisfaction with success frequently! Enjoy it!

When referring to the word confidence, it’s often paired with “build” (eg. it builds confidence). This is no coincidence as confidence is something we, and especially children, build through repeated success. As mentioned, success is so satisfying when achieved through hard work and determination. In learning what produces success, your child will build confidence in knowing he can attain it repeatedly.

The last developmental step in fostering successful children is teaching her to be a leader. Knowing she is capable of something herself, is the first step in leading others. As we repeatedly build confidence through “just right” challenges, our child will naturally begin to lead others when confronted with a new task. You’ve likely seen this in your own child. When playing a new game, she might go out of her way to show you how to do it right. This is awesome! Go along with this and encourage it. Learning from your child is great, and giving her a positive reaction will build confidence in leadership roles. Even better, provide her with constructive feedback so you can both work collaboratively to achieve a goal.

While providing your child with “just right” challenges is critical in fostering success, it is by no means everything. There are many other factors like love, support and attention that are highly critical too. We’ve intentionally omitted these factors as they will be discussed in later posts, and they are critical in many other aspects of your child’s well being. Instead, we’ve assumed these to be a given, while focussing on the additional factors that specifically develop traits for repeated success.

If you got the impression “just right” challenges are only for older children, think again! Believe it or not, we should be thinking in this context from the moment our baby arrives. As your child matures, so do the challenges you present. Many you’ll do instinctively without even knowing it, but it’s important to actively push the limits of our child’s current understanding and skillset, so he may continue to grow and improve.

At this point, you may be asking - what are some examples of “just right” challenges?

Here are a few example challenges for you to consider:

1-year old: Peekaboo is a wonderful game that transcends cultures and is played with parents and babies around the world. This classic game teaches object permanence as babies learn to predict and anticipate the reappearance of their parent’s face.

3 year old: Ask your child hypothetical questions like, “What would you do if you saw someone being bullied on the playground?” or “How do you think Anna felt when you took her toy?” Questions like this are great in helping your child sympathize and consider others' feelings, which is the foundation of learning empathy.

Educational games: Age appropriate educational games are fantastic in helping your child develop critical skills like hand eye coordination, creativity, problem solving and much more. Those played in a group with family members and/or other children also provide wonderful opportunities for your child to interact with others and refine their social and emotional skills.

Additional tips for fostering success

Always praise effort over talent. We want our children to learn that success is a result of hard work and determination. If instead your child begins to associate success with her innate brilliance, she’ll stop working as hard and begin to question and doubt herself when presented with challenges that don’t come as naturally.

For example, say “Congratulations! You deserve that A because you worked hard for it!” Instead of “Wow, you’re so smart!”

Consider holding your child back a year. I cannot emphasize this enough!!! Children develop new skills at an astonishingly fast rate. If your child is six versus five years old when starting kindergarten, he will have 20% more life experiences than his peers. Experiences equate to brain development. Activities that stump other children, he’ll likely solve with ease. This is true of both academics and sports. The additional size and coordination your child develops in an extra year, creates a significant advantage on and off the field.

Foster an environment of love and support. Our brains are hard-wired for safe-first. If your child isn’t fully relaxed and comfortable, it will be difficult for him to learn new skills.

What are some tips you’ve learned in fostering success?

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Happy Learning and God Bless!

Colby