How Parents can Motivate their Child to Succeed.

It is no secret that we all love success. It motivates us to repeat whatever it was that led to our goals being met. It makes us feel good about ourselves and encourages us to experience those feelings again and again. Our children are no different. They want to be successful at home, at school, and on the sporting field, but sometimes their definition of success can be distorted. Parental attitudes to success can have a significant impact on your child's ability to succeed. If your expectations are too high, your child will have difficulty meeting those standards and may give up trying. If your expectations are too low then you run the risk of not giving your children anything to strive for.
Parental expectations of success need to be realistic and in line with your kids abilities. Once you have your expectations in the right balance, there are a number of practical ways you can help your child to be motivated to succeed.
1. For complex tasks, encourage your child to break up the project into manageable stages. The successful completion of each stage will give them a sense of achievement and make the end result appear closer and more achievable.
2. Encourage your child to put their own goals down on paper. Making a list of short, medium and long term goals will help them to feel in control of their learning. It will also enable them to experience multiple levels of success at varying stages of their learning processes. Studies show that if the goals written down are realistic, and looked at frequently, they are more likely to be achieved.
3. Make sure you celebrate with your child when goals are achieved - even if they are lesser or short term goals. These early experiences of success will motivate your child to continue to strive for even bigger goals. It will also instill a positive attitude in them which, if nurtured, will help them in all aspects of their lives ahead.
4. Let them know that you believe in them and in their ability to succeed. A child who has confidence in their own abilities will succeed much more regularly than one who doesn't. But if the people around him do not share that confidence, then self-doubt can soon take over.
5. Treat failures to achieve goals as temporary setbacks rather than total disappointments. Examine why the goals weren't met and what can be learned from that experience. Re-set the goals, if possible, to something more attainable. Always remember that these set-backs are a part of life and should always be looked at in a constructive way.
Remember, successful people surround themselves with other successful people. Developing a positive mindset in your family could and should make a world of difference.