Parents often try to help their children in any way they can,
but sometimes they don’t know how to enhance leadership in their child. There
are some negative behaviors that parents usually have towards this situation. There
are seven behaviors that prevent your children from becoming leaders according
to Dr. Tim Elmore:
1. When parents don’t
allow children to experience risk (We risk too little). Even though I’m not
a parent, I can imagine what it takes to keep a child from accidentally
injuring themselves, and I can tell that when my parents gave me space it
helped me become independent and resourceful.
Having a constant fear about your child’s safety will eventually have an
impact on their mental health. Unfortunately, over-protecting our young people
has had an adverse effect on them. “Children of risk-averse parents have lower
test scores and are slightly less likely to attend college than offspring of
parents with more tolerant attitudes toward risk,” says a team led by Sarah
Brown of the University of Sheffield in the UK.
2. Rescuing too fast.
This generation of young people has not developed some life skills because
their parents are often taking care of problems for them. Rescuing and over-indulging our children is
one of the most insidious forms of child abuse, it sorely misses the point of
leadership—to equip our young people to do it without help. Now days Today, if a
child is outside at all, their mother is usually there doing the conflict
resolution for the kid. If they always get the help they need without even
asking, children will never learn to solve their problem by themselves.
3. Show enthusiasm
easily. “If it doesn’t come easy, I don’t want to do it”, says a child when
his/her parents rave too easily. Eventually,
this kid will observe that “mom” is the only one who thinks he’s/she’s amazing,
no one else seems to say it. They begin to doubt the objectivity of their own
mother; it feels good in the moment, but it’s not connected to reality. Children
learn to cheat, to exaggerate and lie and to avoid difficult reality because
they have not been conditioned to face problems, mom will always come to the
front line.
4. To reward every
achievement. A mistake made by many parents, especially those with more
than one child. Parents shouldn’t always reward their children with gifts
because the kid will not experience intrinsic motivation or unconditional love.
Children must be exposed with doses of hardship, delay, challenges and
inconvenience to build the strength to stand in them.
5. Do not share past mistakes.
It is good to tell those things you didn’t do well when you were their age, so
you can show how you faced the problem and teach them the lesson you learned.
6. Confusing
intelligence, talent and influence maturely. Parents usually confuse intelligence
or other skills with maturity. We can see this problem when excellent students
have performed their job perfectly and then, they don’t know how to face an
audience. Intelligence refers to the
influences of learning and experience and maturity, in the other hand, is more
like the ability to respond to the environment in an appropriate manner.
7. Do not practice
what you preach. Parents have the responsibility to model what type of life
they want their children to live. Therefore, if we want to raise leaders, we
should try to always use honest words.
