Habits define our characters, according to Aristotle, and Aristotle was right. We are the sum total of our habits, and your children will be the sum total of their habits.
The habits our children form will make their adulthood either more fruitful or less fruitful, more rewarding or less rewarding, more content or less content.
All good habits are built upon one key habit: discipline, and the easiest time to learn discipline is in childhood.
Show me a person who can control his "passions" so they don't derail his long-term goals, and I’ll show you a person capable of accomplishing much in life.
If you want to become a proficient musician, you must practice daily. If you want to be an educated person, you must study daily. If you want to be a kind person, you must act with kindness every day.
Having discipline means that we do these things even when we don’t feel like it because we want to reach our goals. It will be the same for your children.
Here are 10 ways you can help your children reach greater heights in life.
Habits in the Home
1. From toddlerhood, teach him to pick up his toys when he's finished playing with them. This is a habit that requires discipline, and it cannot be taught too early.
2. A 3-year-old should put his clothes in the dirty hamper and make his bed. He may need some help making his bed, and that’s okay. You want to get him into the habit of making it while he’s still very young.
3. Train your children not to leave their things lying around the house. Everything has its place, and once you teach them where each place is, they should develop the habit of putting things away when their finished using them.
4. Age-appropriate chores should be given to each child and strictly enforced. This is not to be hard on your children but to teach them the habit of discipline.
Before the children play, they should learn to do the things required of them. After work comes play.
This is how real life works, and the more your children understand the laws of living in the real world, the less of a shock they’ll have when they reach adulthood.
The Habits of Health
5. Daily exercise. No matter how young your child is, learning to be active will pay off in great dividends later by way of good health. You don't want to be the parent who is pushing a 6-year-old around in a stroller.
Teach your kids to walk long distances by taking them out walking from an early age. Toughen them up a bit because you have to be tough to get through life with your "heart" intact.
The more people can endure physically, the more they can endure mentally, at least that’s been my observation.
6. Raise your children on healthy foods so they develop a taste for and the habit of eating real food. A healthy diet is critical to good health.
One of my notable parenting mistakes took place around food. On nights when I was too tired to cook, my go-to was "organic" boxed macaroni and cheese. At some point, I realized I had never made my children real macaroni and cheese, so I made them some.
And horrors of all horrors, they preferred the boxed stuff. So I quit buying it.
Social Skills in the Making
7. Teach your children to look at others when they are in a conversation. With the deluge of screens in children's lives, kids are growing up with anti-social skills and often look off to the side or look downward when speaking to someone.
Looking at a person is not only respectful, but it also shows them that you are listening.
8. Do not let your children interrupt you or anyone else. It's rude and disrespectful. Besides, your children need to develop the skill of listening.
People are distracted by screens and struggle to focus. No, there isn't an ADHD epidemic: it's an epidemic of "limp" focus muscles. Developing good listening skills will help your children to build their focus muscles.
9. When you have guests in your home, teach your children to greet them courteously. My brother Troy was in Mississippi, which is known as the "Hospitality" state, and he said that a person would greet everyone in the shop upon entering, workers and guests alike.
Today, it's common to walk into someone's home and have their children act like they don't see you. Not Mississippians, that's for sure!
10. Raise your children to think of the needs of others first. I know this goes against the "me first" world we are living in, but that's because we've got it all backwards.
The "me first" attitude has produced nothing but misery. Helping other people in need brings us joy, so teach your children to be in the habit of offering to help and helping graciously when it is asked of them.
For example. You may want to read but your book is in the other room, so you ask one of your children to fetch it for you.
It's for their benefit that you make the request of them, because you are helping them develop the habit of graciously helping others.
Each one of these 10 habits will help your children develop a disciplined approach to life, and discipline is a far-reaching character trait that will take them far.
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About Elizabeth Y. Hanson
Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a “whole” child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.
Liz is a homeschooling thought-leader, as well as the creator of three unique online courses, Raise Your Child Well: Preserving Your Child's Natural Genius by Laying a Solid Foundation During the First Seven Years; the Smart Homeschooler Academy, educating children who are brilliant, happy, and well-socialized; and How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, Liz has 23 years of experience guiding parents through the amazing journey of raising and educating their children.
Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”
—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.
