You know all of the big things you need to do for your children, as they have many of the same requirements you do. They need to eat, get dressed, bathe, be somewhere at a certain time (work for you, school for them), and much more.
As life gets busier, you may forget that life is made of the smaller, simpler moments that come in between the big, important ones. This forgetfulness could result in you accidentally causing harm to your child in ways you likely don’t recognize immediately, if at all.
Ideas for Improving Your Child’s Life
Below, you’ll find some small things to do for your children that will improve their lives. Don’t forget to do these things even as work gets really busy and stressful or you find yourself creating a successful parenting plan that meets your child’s needs.
Praise Them Often
You know to praise your child when they get good grades or succeed at their favorite sport or other extracurricular activity, but you may have neglected to do so for the smaller things. The positive effects praise has for children can’t be understated.
Providing this praise is actually pretty simple: say “thank you” when your child takes care of a chore, get excited when they clean their room, or anything else that makes it clear to them that you notice and appreciate all of their efforts. If you don’t do this, they may begin to feel like their efforts are ignored or not appreciated.
Think about it this way: at work, you always get praised when delivering a successful large project, but this doesn’t happen when you do exceptionally well at an everyday task. You’ll most likely focus all of your energy on those big tasks which means putting a lot of pressure on yourself and doing the bare minimum for everything else.
Over time, your work will suffer as will your health. If you hate doing that to yourself, imagine what it must feel like to your children.
Praise them often and you’ll see them flourish, but fail to praise any of the small victories and watch as they start to crush themselves under the weight of what they believe to be your expectations.
Encourage Independence
Independence is a vital part of adulthood, yet we rarely allow our children to practice it. The gestures don’t have to be massive; leaving them alone at home for short trips, getting an item from the next aisle in the grocery store and ordering their own food at a restaurant are just a few ways to encourage independence in your children.
Failing to encourage independence in your children will make them less confident, decrease their resilience and negatively impact their mental health overall.
There are small, simple things you can do to allow your child to be more independent beyond what has already been mentioned. Providing a phone for emergency contact when they hang out with friends or are left home alone is a good example.
Teaching your child to cook and letting them fix themselves a meal or snack is another. Give your kid space to do things on their own while being close by to help should something go wrong and you’ll see the benefits as their confidence grows.
Leave Positive Notes
Imagine this: your kid is having a bad day at school—they failed a test they studied hard for, lost the basketball game in gym class, and lost their favorite pencil on top of it all. They finally sit down at the lunch table with their lunchbox, downtrodden.
They open the lunch box and pull out their sandwich to find a little piece of paper between their pretzels and cookies. They pull it out and smile as they read it. While the day is still not ideal, it’s a little better now.
Leaving little positive messages around will brighten your kid’s day more than you’d anticipate. You can leave them in school lunches, as mentioned but you can also leave them on chore lists, around laptops or other supplies they use for homework or even just generally around the house. You might even be surprised to find them returning the favor.
Respect Their Privacy
Respecting your child's privacy might just be the best thing you can do for them. Knocking before entering their room, asking them before being their friend on social media and not reading their diary are all simple things you can do to respect their privacy.
Failing to do so will decrease their trust in you and make them more likely to hide things and keep secrets from you. Just because they’re a kid doesn't mean they don’t deserve privacy.
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