Every parent wants their child to grow up happy, healthy, intelligent and engaged with the world around them. It can be easy to focus on academic success and overlook fostering other talents and traits, from sports to just being kind. Here’s how you can raise well-rounded children, who will be valuable members of their community.

Teach Social Skills

Children who learn strong social skills early tend to be more successful as adults. Teaching your children how to solve any disputes with their friends, share their possessions, listen without interrupting, and how to help others is a really good place to start. It’s never too early to start teaching these things. To further inculcate these essential skills, you could consider having your child embark on a STEM school trip, which can significantly enhance their social development. These trips generally encourage teamwork, problem-solving, and collaboration as children work together on hands-on projects and experiments. By participating in such interactive experiences, kids not only learn scientific concepts but also practice essential social skills in real-world settings. This combination of learning and social interaction could help them develop confidence and competence in navigating relationships with their peers.

Don’t Be Overprotective

Every parent wants their child to be safe and happy, so it’s easy to fall into being overprotective. It’s natural to want to rush to solve their problems for them, but this takes away the chance of learning how to solve their issues themselves.

Instead, try to step back and allow your child to make mistakes so they can learn from them. They need to learn to become more resilient and resourceful so they can be better prepared for adult life. Similarly, you would want your kids to be brave and fearless. Kids often feel safe sleeping with their parents as opposed to sleeping alone or with their siblings. You may need to stop this. Encourage them to sleep in their own bed or in bunk beds with their siblings so they can start getting rid of the fear of the dark.

This won’t be easy to do, and there is a fine line between protecting your kids and letting them face their own problems to learn from them.

Get Your Children Involved In Academics Early

Research shows that reading to your children and teaching them some early maths skills from a young age can have a big impact on their later success. Early help is useful, but once they get to school, start trying to wean off them needing too much homework help, so they can learn to work without your assistance.

Express an interest in their educational pursuits. Do detailed research on the schools in your area and contact them for information about their programs. Search online with keywords like “child educational centers in New York”, “christian schools in jacksonville“, and “top schools near me”, to get a list of schools in the area. Then contact the schools directly to ask about their programs and curriculum.

Don’t Let Them Sit In Front Of A Screen

Too much screen time has been linked to all kinds of problems, including trouble sleeping, behavioural issues, and childhood obesity. Some screen time is nothing to worry about, but try to limit it to around two hours a day.

Encourage your kids to try other hobbies, arrange fun, but educational, things to do as a family, or send them on primary school trips instead of letting them sit in front of the computer.

Another idea is to encourage them to become content creators, rather than just passive consumers of content. Encourage them to learn skills like programming, editing, 3D modelling, or digital music production, so screen time becomes more productive.

Encourage Them To Be Active

A child when active, tends to excel in other aspects of his or her life. In this day and age where we’re surrounded by screens, social media, and bright and flashy things, it is easy to sit back and relax, which could be detrimental to health in the long term. So, you should urge your kids to play and participate in sports.

When you encourage them to be active, they will likely show an inclination towards the sport that you expose them to. And once they have acquired a taste, they develop a determination to excel, which contributes to their physical and mental health.

Say, your son has begun practising ice hockey regularly; he will be determined to participate in a Youth Hockey Tournament to prove his worth. This can boost his self-esteem, keep him fit, and encourage him to keep his body and mind healthy.

Don’t Praise Innate Qualities Like Intelligence Or Looks

It can be tempting to focus your praise on things like good grades without needing to study, or how pretty they look, but only praising children with statements like this can lead to underperformance.

Instead, praise the effort that your children put into overcoming problems and challenges in their life, determination, and hard work. Praising effort rather than innate skills encourages your kids to develop their skills rather than coasting.