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Are You Raising Kind Children? Here are Five Tips To Make Sure You Are!

As parents, we aim to bring up our children as best as we can. We help them get good grades at school and excel in acitivies and hobbies that they like. We feel proud of them when they find their career path and succeed. But do we ever try to instill kindness or politeness in them, consciously? Not much. Apart from teaching our kids to say please and thank you, we don’t do much in making a good human being out of them. We think it is part of the education they are getting and they will learn about it all as they grow up. However, not everyone learns like that. It is important for us to teach our kids about being humane, kind, polite and thoughtful. Being kind is not restricted only to other human beings, but also to the animals and our environment.

Reprimand Them If They Ever Talk Rudely

Don’t let your kids talk rudely with anyone, most importantly with you. Even if their grandparents or other relatives indulge them and let them do that, you need to stop it right away. This way, they will learn that they are not supposed to talk like that with anyone. If they get away with it easily, they would think that they can behave like that with anyone. Hence the reason to start teaching them while they are still at home. If they want something and are talking nastily, make them apologize first and ask again but nicely, only then relent. If they get things easily by being rude, that can easily become a habit.

Explain How Helping Others Bring Us Joy

Parents often feel a bit overwhelmed as to what to share and what not to share with the kids. Our opinion is, catch them young. Teach them from a young age about whatever you want them to be aware of. More often than not, kids surprise us by being more mature than their age and more sensitive than we think them to be. Explain to them how helping others might make us happy from inside. Once they start doing it, it will almost become a habit for them. You don’t have to ask them to help strangers, helping around the house works too. That way they will also become accustomed to doing chores and favors without expecting something in return.

Do Your Children Like It When You Tease Them?

Though we often treat children like they are still infants, they have the ability to understand when they are being taunted or degraded. If you tease your kids in home and your kids find it quite funny, it should be okay. But if you see your children running away from you, getting upset or even crying when you tease them, then you must be degrading them in some way and hurting them too. If this is the case, you should either stop doing it altogether or find out some other way to tease them harmlessly. If you continue doing it your children will think it is okay to do the same to their friends. Basically, you are just inculcating the seeds of bullying in them when you do that!

Be A Role Model

Though this is a bit of a cliche that arrives at the end of every parenting tip and trick, that doesn’t make it any less important. Children will always do as you do, not as you say. So, do some self -contemplation and find out if any behavior of yours might not set a good example for your child. Change yourself for the better and see how your child does it too! Talking rudely to your spouse, other family members, your house helps or even your friends are going to affect your child and give them the message that it is okay to talk like that. If you keep doing that and yet expect your child to be kind and empathetic, it is never going to work. So, be exemplary!

Showing your child respect, treating them at times like adults, and listening to their opinions is important, for that’s how your kids will learn to do the same. Teach them it is okay to be emotional or express your emotions, ask them to practice good manners both at home and outside – all these teachings are equally as important to that of academic education.

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