Each of us brings a level of uniqueness and diversity to our role as parent, but we all have one thing in common: we assumed the most demanding and important job we'll ever have in life with little or no experience.

Like all new parents, we gazed in awe at the exquisite perfection of the tiny being we brought home from the hospital.  But time passed quickly, and before we knew it our tiny being was sitting up, then crawling and learning to stand, followed by a few tottering steps to the couch, which he quickly scaled.

        Once mobile, all children are nature-driven to learn about their environment by exploring. Some call that "getting into things."  Because this is a time when parents are immersed in new parenting challenges as well as the usual day-to-day life issues, it's easy to overlook the important fact that the quality of our responses to our child's exploring is shaping his self-concept.  That's particularly important because self-concept is formed by about age 5, and it's a reliable predictor of the success a child will or won't meet in life. 

        In his book, Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World, H. Stephen Glenn, Ph.D., published the results of extensive research devoted to discovering why some young people and adults succeed in living full, happy, and successful lives, while others end up in alcohol and drug treatment centers, detention centers, hospitals, or prisons.  What were the keys to raising children who succeed in life? 

        The results of the study showed conclusively that individuals living happy, productive lives had three perceptions about themselves that were lacking or diminished in those who struggled. Those perceptions were:  I am capable, I am significant, and I have the power to influence what happens in my life.  It is important that we promote those vital perceptions with our own children.  So how do we accomplish that?

FOSTERING  PERCEPTIONS OF BEING CAPABLE

        Children are motivated to learn and do things from birth.  If given the opportunity, they can come to view themselves as capable at a very young age, but it's possible to unwittingly train them to believe they're incapable.  For example, consider the eager 3-year-old who "pesters" mother to let him vacuum or help in the kitchen.  Mom responds with, "Not now honey, you're too little.  Go play with your toys."  Fast forward four years to the time when mother finally asks for his help. At this point she's likely to get a response like, "Not now - I'm playing Nintendo."  When this type of situation occurs, parents are often unaware that their child is doing exactly what he's been trained to do. 

        Children learn to see themselves as capable when they spend time with adults who consider and treat them as capable.  When toddlers begin to explore, parents often voice an endless stream of, "No, don't, stop, quit."  It's important to recognize that when the child doesn't do what we want him to do, it may well be that we've never told him what we do want him to do.  We've only told him what he  shouldn't do.  So when we tell a child what he shouldn't do, we must also tell him what he can do.  For example, as we move him away from the TV and toward the toys, we use a firm yet kind tone when we say, "No, we don't play with the TV, but you can play with the toys on your shelf." Then play with him there for a couple of minutes. Repeat the routine a couple of times, and within a very short time, the child will show you he "gets it." At that point, you can celebrate his success.  And nothing will help him to feel more capable than your applause!

        We can promote our child's perception of being capable by avoiding the following:

• Overprotecting and doing for the child what he could do for himself.
• Assuming the child can't do something without giving him an opportunity to try.
• Stepping in and taking over a project the child is working on, such as re-making his bed.
• Directing, ordering, and correcting his effort to accomplish.
• Expecting too much too soon, without time to develop the skill.
• Saying, "Why can't you ever? How come you never? Surely you realize," etc.
• Focusing on mistakes. "You did a good job cleaning the kitchen, BUT you didn't empty the garbage."

FOSTERING  PERCEPTIONS OF SIGNIFICANCE

        The greatest human need is to feel significant, to "belong."  When humans of any age don't feel a sense of significance, they behave in negative ways that offer a false sense of significance.  Experience has proven that just five or ten minutes of uninterrupted time spent with a young child twice daily-when the parent is with the child in "body and  soul"-will provide a sense of significance and effect positive behavior changes in a very short time. 

        Because family structure is more blurred today than ever before, rituals and traditions are increasingly important in providing affirming family experiences for our children.  If we didn't come away from our own childhood with traditions around holidays, vacations, birthdays, etc., we can devise and perpetuate our own traditions that create family bonds - the family "gang."  Kids who have a "gang" to belong to at home don't have a reason to search for one elsewhere. 

        In the past, our society could be described as high contact, low technology.  Today, it's just the opposite.  We must create conditions in our own home that allow for contact and dialogue.  The importance of ensuring time for dialogue cannot be stated too strongly. Research has proven that dialogue is the foundation for critical thinking, moral and ethical development, judgmental maturity, bonding, closeness, and trust.  Children who eat alone or spend hours isolated in their own rooms with the computer or television are robbed of the benefits of dialogue and a sense of significance.

FOSTERING  PERCEPTIONS OF PERSONAL INFLUENCE

        A characteristic of individuals who frequently get into trouble is the misperception that they have little or no power to affect what happens in life.  When things go wrong, they believe it's surely someone else's fault - a "victim" mentality.  On the other hand, people who avoid trouble recognize society's limits and the cause/effect relationship between what they do and the results they experience.  They are internally motivated to assume responsibility for their actions as a means of influencing what happens to them.  They operate on the belief that they can't control the cards they're dealt in life, but they can determine how they play them, and that makes all the difference.

        Parents who say to a counselor "Do something with my child" exhibit no hope of improving the parent/child relationship; they model passive victim behavior.  On the other hand, the parent who says, "Help me learn what I need to do differently to gain more cooperation with my child!"  has accepted that the answer lies within, and that parent is more likely to find a constructive solution. Children tend to emulate their parents' approach to problems.

        Positive discipline methods promote a child's perception of his power to influence what happens in life.  Discipline begins with setting limits, using wisdom to anticipate problems, and deciding beforehand how to solve them.  Effective discipline involves a logical consequence that is reasonable, respectful, related to the infraction, and revealed to the child in advance.  The hallmark of a consequence is that it offers the child a choice: to behave in an acceptable manner, or experience a known consequence.  The fact that the child has a choice puts the ball in his court; he is in full charge and has the benefit of learning the cause/effect relationship between the choice he makes and the result he experiences.  This is a time for the parent to let him learn the valuable lesson of knowing that he can indeed influence what happens. 

        Successful parenting happens when we become the child's coach, and his cheerleader.