Anyone who has parented a child will likely agree that parenting is hard. No official roadmap or guide is given upon birth—leaving raising a child entirely up to your discretion.
Parenting is a string of discussions, behaviors, beliefs, commands, and demands sprinkled with love that will likely create the person your child will become as an adult.
Our childhood environment shapes our personality, habits, and thoughts from birth into adulthood.
Therefore, essentially, we are a product of our environment, and unless taking an active role in changing, we will pass those same things to our children.
Thus, allowing them to be just like ourselves.
Sound intimidating and scary? Because it is.
If you are like me, you may want to teach your child to overcome the shortcomings you encounter throughout childhood.
Below is a complete list of the most important things I can teach my child.
1. Having Good Character is More Than Just Being Nice
One of the most important things I can teach my child is the importance of having good character.
Having my child understand that good character is more than just being nice. Someone who is being nice can still hurt those around them through selfishness, being competitive, or even gossiping.
Having Good Character is More Than Just Being Nice.
Unfortunately, those with the best intentions may sometimes not understand how toxic certain personality traits are. [Read also: Types of People to Avoid: Negative Character Traits]
This is likely because they were raised with these unhealthy personality traits as the norm. Likely, they were never taught the difference.
Therefore, they do not understand how their actions and behaviors hurt those around them.
For this reason, learning about good character traits is essential.
It’s a great way to self-assess and determine (if any) changes to character are needed to become a better person for your child.
Being a better person allows the ability to lead by example.
It is important for your words and actions must align as children will watch your every step.
Therefore, making it essential to act the part I want my child to become.
Thus, making changes so my actions and behaviors align with my verbal communication of how to be a good person.
Raising children with good character will increase their chances of hanging around others that make good choices since that is what they are familiar with.
Thus, teaching kids to have an uplifting, positive attitude will increase their chances of hanging out with other kids who are kind, supportive, and encouraging.
2. Anything Financial
Unless having a financial degree, lucky enough to have a course or two in high school, or self educated, there is a slight chance of having in-depth financial knowledge.
If you are like most of us, the topic is incredibly overwhelming.
Understanding finances is complex and takes years of self-education to understand the basics such as budgeting, savings, credit scores, and the best ways to pay down debt.
Then there is investments and retirement, an entirely different animal to tackle. Therefore, making financial education extremely important.
Thus, making it essential to educate my child while they are young, allowing room for a learning curve.
Furthermore, teaching the basics of finance is essential to survive in life, so when they go out on their own, they are successful.
According to census.gov, 58% of adults ages 18 to 24 live in their parental home, while 17% of adults ages 25-34 live at home with their parents.
The worst thing I can imagine is having my wide-eyed, nieve child entering the world with huge aspirations only to get crippled with debt within the first few years of being on their own.
This often happens with student loan debt, credit cards, or large ticket purchases.
Therefore, financial education is essential to understand how to utilize money to survive.
Another financial lesson to teach at a young age is knowledge of retirement.
Learning about the different types of accounts, methods, and retirement strategies is great for when they enter the workforce.
Another way to financially educate my child is by opening a custodial account and familiarizing them by allowing them to pick their stocks or explaining the method of how to choose the right stocks.
Then showing the impact the economy, politics, and businesses have on increases and decreasing stock prices. This is a hands-on approach.
3. Who You Marry Will Greatly Impact Your Life
Another thing I want to teach my child is who you marry will significantly impact your life.
The person they marry will impact their finances, mental and physical wellbeing.
Their decisions can affect my child, and my child may pick up their bad habits, behaviors, and attitudes over time.
Some aspects to analyze before marriage:
- Habits– Will the spouses habits uplift them as a person or bring them down?
- Addictions– Does the spouse have any addictions? Is it something small like vaping or significant like drugs?
- Attitudes– Do the spouse have a positive attitude or a lousy attitude?
- Finances– Can the spouse manage money, or will they drain them of theirs?
- Energy Level– Does their spouse like to do stuff or sit at home all day?
- Contribution– Will the spouse contribute to the bills and household chores or expect them to do everything?
I am going to tell my child that the person they marry will likely be someone they are around daily and spend most of their time with on the weekends.
Spending a majority of time with their spouse will cause habits, attitude, and choices and preferences to merge. Therefore, influencing one another.
Where practices, attitudes, and opinions don’t merge, then conflict may arise and cause stress and anguish over time.
Letting my child know that it is imperative the person they marry is someone who can uplift, motivate and encourage them to be a better person.
Furthermore, teaching them the signs to look for to ensure their spouses downfalls will not negatively impact them.
This is an important lesson to teach my child. When they get married, their partner will likely have a significant impact on them.
As we all constantly evolve and change throughout life, my kid’s partner may impact the person my child will become throughout their adult life.
4. Failing is OK
One of the most important things I can teach my child is that failing is OK.
If ever afraid, accept that failure is inevitable at some point while trying to succeed.
Conquering the fear of defeat allows the ability to try something that would otherwise be scary.
I want my child to be proud to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. To know that failure is not an end-all.
It is OK to try again. Just try something different. Keep trying and failing and trying again until they succeed.
Hopefully, this will instill in my child that trying and giving it their best shot is more important than fearing failure.
Trying something new allows one to gain new knowledge, experiences, and stories that can carry along with them throughout life.
5. Find a Career You Love
Most of your time as an adult is dedicated to your job.
From getting ready for work to the drive there and back, then there is the time spent in the office.
That’s not including if they get contacted outside of work.
Work is consuming much of Americans’ time.
Therefore, teaching my child it’s essential to be happy at their job.
Letting my child know that being happy at their job is important because they are going to spend a lot of time doing it and thinking about it.
Therefore, make sure they go after their passion and not chase the money.
I want to teach my child to find a passion, then determine a way to make money. Do what they love.
6. Learn How to Deal with Toxic People
I want to educate my child on how to deal with toxic people. Regardless of how hard they try to avoid toxic people they will have to deal with them at some point in their life. It is inevitable.
These people may have good intentions, or they may be vindictive. Either way, they are terrible for their mental wellbeing.
Teaching my child how to recognize, navigate and set boundaries is incredibly important to dealing with toxic people and situations. [Read also: How to Identify Toxic People]
Why is it important to Learn How to Deal with Toxic People?
It is crucial because toxic people drain their energy, leaving them feeling bad and taking their peaceful state of mind.
Being around mentally poisonous people is inevitable throughout life, from school projects and family members to co-workers.
Therefore, I want to teach my child that it is essential to learn how to deal with these people to maintain happiness and peace.
7. Don’t Name Drop Unless it’s too Compliment
Name-dropping is usually in the form of gossiping. It can be speaking poorly of someone or just sharing detailed personal information about their lives.
Either way, I want to teach my child not to name-drop unless it’s to give praise and uplift those around us higher.
Instead of speaking poorly of others when they are not around, learn to talk highly and give praise behind their backs.
8. Pave Your Own Path
I want to teach my child to be independent and self-efficient and to pave their own path in life.
Teaching them to make their own decisions and not get pressured based on what others want for them.
Paving one’s own path in life demonstrates the ability to make their own decisions and have the strength to do what is best without outside influence.
Additionally, teaching my child to pave their own way, they will likely become independent and self-assured enough to go after what they want later in life without being impacted by the nay-sayers.
9. Learn to Find Your Why
I want to educate my child on the power of ‘Why’.
Teaching them to find their ‘why’, a personal mission statement of what they want to achieve in life.
The personal statement is the why behind wanting to achieve anything in life. This is an understanding of the purpose that is motivating them.
A strong ‘why’ in life will likely allow the achievement of success.
The ‘why’ ought to be personal and something that sets the soul on fire—a purpose why life is all worth living.
Teaching my child that finding their ‘why’ in life will keep them grounded even during the tough times.
The ‘why’ will allow the ability to stay disciplined even during times of discouragement.
The ‘why’ will have the late-night oil burning through the night as they work towards their goal and dreams.
The ‘why’ gives purpose.
For this reason, I want to teach my kids to find their ‘why’ in life so they can find a purpose and passion they believe in, giving them a purpose, strength, and belief to work towards big goals.
10. Have a Plan in Life
This is a BIG one. A plan in life is essential. It is like a roadmap to guide them where they are going in life.
It gives them the steps to get there and how long it may take. Without a plan, it can make it hard to achieve their goals.
I want to educate my kids on creating a roadmap in life with a 1-5-10-15-20-year plan.
Visualize what they wish to do with their lives and then encourage and teach them the discipline needed to succeed.
In conclusion, raising a child can be a daunting task, with no official guidebook to follow.
As parents, we are responsible for shaping our children’s personalities, habits, and thoughts from birth into adulthood.
Recognizing that our childhood environment often shapes our communication style, traditions, and views is essential.
Therefore, educating ourselves about good character traits is crucial to becoming better people and leading by example for our children.
As parents, we want to ensure that our children are well-equipped to navigate the complexities of life.
One important aspect is providing them with a solid foundation in financial education.
By teaching them the value of money, how to budget, and how to save, we are setting them up for a lifetime of financial success.
These are just a few of the many pointers listed above.
However, by giving our children the tools they need to succeed financially and personally, we are setting them up for a bright and fulfilling future.
If I can get these few key things right, I feel I have succeeded as a mother.
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About Author, Sara Elizabeth
Writer, Amora V Lifestyle
Co-Owner of Elizabeth Besich Boutique
Sara is a writer for Amora V Lifestyle and is Co-Owner of Elizabeth Besich. Sara previously worked as a Marketing Manager and has her Master’s from Lindenwood University.
Sara studies everything of interest, from psychology, recipes, finances, mental health, and travel, thriving to find happiness and to live a good life.
When not learning, Sara loves all things outdoors, food, and hanging around great company. Furthermore, Sara loves spending time with family, who she is blessed to have in her life.
Note from the author: Through my articles, I hope to bring you joy and peace and that you enjoy it!
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