Let’s say a parent has an intention to raise their child to become a Leader. Great!!
A typical routine day for this parent will look like this:
- Wake up
- Off to work
- Return home from work
- Enquire about the day and school homework with the child
- When the child expresses a wish to own the latest video game, the parent agrees. (This instant agreement stems from an emotion connected to the parent as a child where their wishes could not be fulfilled and now, they do not want their child to go through the same sadness and disappointment
- Eat food and go to sleep
The parent is pretty much in the comfort zone here and feels confident too.
A rare and intention routine day for this parent will look like this:
- Wake up
- Off to work
- Return home, conscious about the intent to teach one leadership trat, eg. Resilience
- Inquire about the day and school homework and encourage the child to share his/her experiences of the day. The parent acknowledges the child’s feelings.
- The parent talks about how their day went and what were some of the observations and learnings
- The child expresses a wish to own the latest video game. The parent acknowledges the child’s wish and decides on a time during the weekend when the family can discuss about this wish and reach a collective agreement.
(This experience gives an opportunity to the child to learn about patience, value for money, teamwork and building resilience). The child also observes the confident, calm, and practical way the parent handles the situation.
Of course, just one episode is not going to build the leadership skills in the child. Developing a skill or habit takes time and it needs constant consistent effort.
As a parent, it’s not just enough to feel confident. We need to act and display our confidence by nurturing our children in line with how we intend to groom them and fearlessly give them all relevant experiences that will help them to thrive and not just survive.
KEY TAKEAWAY:
Parents have great intentions and goals for their children. But their intentions must be acted upon to convert them to reality.
Intentions by themselves are devoid of fear and hence look fairly achievable.
The moment we have to convert them to action, the act will be accompanied by how we feel in that moment.
If there is a feeling of discomfort, it triggers an element of fear, and this can shake our confidence altogether
So, let’s not just be Intentional. Let’s work on ourselves as parents to be Intentionally emotional, by facing our fears head-on and ding what needs to be done.
That’s the essence of Confident Parenting.
