Put Your
Child on the Fast Track for Success
E. Carol Webster, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2004
Is your child on the fast track for success? Help your
youngster learn the skills to get ahead in life. Keep his or her focus on
their primary responsibility during the school years
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going to school. Not just attending class, but performing up to academic
potential and becoming a student that contributes positively to the school
and community.
Success Skills
for Kids
Strong Positive
Peer Group
While kids like to pick their own friends,
parents must give them a little help when they come up short in meeting
peers who are on the ball. First, they must learn that kids who do well in
school and who occupy positions of campus or community leadership are not
nerds or wimps. These kids are put down on television sitcoms and
elsewhere, but help your youngster get to know them personally by
enrolling in clubs or other activities. This contact usually overrides
negative stereotypes about smart kids or kids who work hard to emulate
positive figures. It’s also helpful to schedule contact with your adult
friends or role models who epitomize successful attitudes and behaviors.
This will help your youngster have personal experiences and positive
images of those who are getting ahead. And, don’t forget to include
contact with successful people you don’t know personally, such as public
figures, authors, or others your youngster can meet at conferences, book
signings and other events. These experiences go a long way to counter
negative images and stereotypes your child may have about people who are
successful in areas other than the ones they consider to be “cool”.
Strong Communication Skills
Like it or not, society places a high
value upon strong verbal communication skills. Help your youngster speak
well so these skills can be used in all formal situations. You learned how
to do this a long time ago
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learned that you must speak differently at work, on the phone during a
business call, and when you’re in other fussy situations. Then you talk
the way you want to when you get home. But, your youngster may not fully
grasp the need to be able to comfortably switch back and forth between hip
speech when with their friends and more formal speech when in class or
similar situations. Kids need to understand that they may be presenting an
unfavorable impression if they do not speak properly for the circumstance
they are in at the time, and that they may miss out on opportunities
because of this. Ensure that your child feels comfortable speaking in
public. Too often, children shy away from the spotlight because of poor
speaking skills. Help them evaluate their written skills too. Do they
communicate the image of a winner? If not, help them get it together. And,
give them plenty of practice. Enforce the custom of sending thank you
notes for gifts, writing letters or sending e-mails to elders or friends
who live out of town, or responding to articles in youth magazines or
newspapers. Any additional reading will strengthen vocabulary skills and
help your youngster use language comfortably and effectively.
Positive
Leadership Experiences
Expect your child to be a leader. Even at
very young ages, children are tapped to represent the class at school
meetings and other activities. Rather than deride or hide from these
roles, help your youngster understand the value of having a voice and the
power to change things that happen in life. When you hear complaints about
school rules or activities, point out the value of being active in student
government so your child understands how rules come to be and how to
change them. Take your child with you when you go to vote. When you hear
that only nerds join chemistry clubs or work on the school newspaper,
seize the opportunity to explain how membership in these activities
provides kids with opportunities and experiences that others will never
know. Then do a little more than that. Help your youngster get information
about the clubs and activities viewed as less popular and attend a couple
of meetings. Then talk about whether the activities are only for nerds
after your child has had a chance to get to know some of the kids that are
participating and what the activity has to offer.
In all of these areas, kids must
understand that they can obtain success skills and still be hip too. Don’t
feel that you’re forcing your child to do something he or she doesn’t
really want to do. You’re helping your youngster learn how to make
decisions based upon fact, not stereotypes or the opinions of those who
may not be on the fast track for success. You’ve got a lot of outside
negative influences to counteract in order to help your child excel, so
don’t worry about doing your job
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it’s called parenting.
