Supporting Your Childs Personal Growth

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Helping your child feel good about himself is essential for personal growth and development, especially when it comes to learning in an academic setting. Children's motivation and inspiration oftentimes stems from parental effort to become involved in their child's development by providing support, acceptance, and understanding of their child's skills and competencies. When parents support their children, rather than control and dictate their behavior, children tend to do better not only in school but appear to be overall better rounded and enjoy greater self-esteem, as well as a higher sense of self-worth. Further, offering praise and letting children know that they have done well at a particular task helps them feel more capable with a sense of accomplishment. It increases their trust in themselves as well as in the parent, and helps them feel respected and understood by their parents. Parents working together with their children also enable their offspring to feel emotionally secure and physically safe by providing an environment in which their children can thrive. In contrast, constant criticism and ridicule by the parent can cause children to become insecure and lack trust in authority figures. Children have the need to feel that they can make mistakes, try new things, take risks, accept challenges, and test their potential without being pressured by their parents to succeed or critized for unsuccessful learning attempts. Only acceptance and approval by parents of their childrens' approaches to learning new situations and trying to make sense of the world and their identity, can help children build a positive, optimistic attitude about learning that fosters personal development and growth. <br type="_moz" />