What skills do I Need to Raise a Child in The 21st Century

One of the errors Parents make today is to go about their parenting journey casually without developing needed skills.A lot of parents decide to wait before they start becoming intentional parents, but this is a problem because while they wait, the Child is growing.

So part of what we preach is that everyday matters as a parent.Two things happen when you are building a house, it\’s either you are building a mansion or a shanty, the same applies to parenting. It\’s either you are intentional or not, there are no sidelines.

Dear 21st century parent, to parent in this day and age you need to develop these skills that I will be listing out. Saying \”God forbid without a strategy\” is a failed plan. To raise the Gen Z\’s and Gen alpha\’s , these skills must be part and parcel of you. If you ready to go on this learning spree, let\’s dive Right in.

SKILLS NEEDED TO RAISE A 21ST CENTURY CHILD

1. Self leadership: Self leadership for parents is ability to lead yourself, and it is one of the things that adults struggle with. For you to raise a 21st century Child, you must be able to lead yourself. Being a leader is good but ability to show leadership is also important What is your self leadership quotient?

So ask yourself any skill I want to teach my child, so I have it?Before demanding from your Children ensure you also have it

1. Ability to focus on your Child\’s positive behaviour not just their negative behaviour: Whatever you keep laying emphasis on will grow,if you keep emphasing on what they they are doing wrong it becomes a subconscious thought and then the Child begins to internalise it.

The more you focus on the positive behavior you child gets better, the more you focus on the bad behavior it grows worse.if you can do this right, your ability to work on things becomes better.

1. Let your Children see you focusing on the needs of others: Part of my family values is the ability to help people, if your Child doesn\’t learn to help people they will not be fulfilled and fulfillment and happiness is one of basic needs of life. As they see you serve others, they will learn to serve.Parenting is in the works not just the words.
2. Improve your connection skills: Many parents think they are connected with their Children but in the real sense of it they are just being present. It\’s important you realise that connection is not being present for 24/7 but the ability to connect with content and tools. Connection in parenting is always quality over quantity. You cannot connect without content, it\’s in what you have to give. As a 21st century parent your connection goal must be tight.
3. Learn not to find yourself doing things for your Children: When you do things your Children should be able to do by themselves, it stops them from learning.I know that sometimes allowing children do tasks can be quite messy but you also need to realise that parenting is in the mess. If you are not ready to do the mess then you are not ready to parent. It is through the mess that you learn to teach.
4. Help your Children develop social skills: One of the classes we teach in the level 1 of the TIP inner circle is \” creating a social roadmap for the genzer\” One of the things I have realised in raising children in the 21 century is that teaching social skills has become important. Couple years back, there was no need teaching social skills but the times have changed. If you are not delebrate about building or developing social skills in this time, your Child will be lost and struggle.

You need to understand that for you to raise a well rounded Child, developing Social skills includes sharing, giving feedback,seeing things from others perspective, making eye contact and managing negative emotions.

7.Give them a sense of security:When we say security it goes beyond protecting your Child from harm and insecurity. Giving your Child a sense of security in this context means showing affection.

In giving your Child a sense of security you will need to treat them with respect, acknowledge their feelings, and set consistent boundaries, be approachable, remind them that you love them unconditionally, keep your promises, be dependent and trustworthy.

1. Develop resilience and perseverance: Angela Duckworth ,the author of Grit defines grit as perseverance and passion for long-term goals. It\’s been proven that, this is one of the most important traits that leads to success, research about success also indicates that grit is more important than IQ and a lot other factors.
2. Develop discipline skills: In developing discipline skills, you need to be fair, firm and friendly.
3. Develop your emotional intelligence skills:Emotional intelligence is a very vital skill and it is one skill that a lot of parents struggle with. But the truth is that all these other skills cannot work if you do not work on your emotions. Part of what will help you to embrace the messy part of parenting is to develop yourself emotionally.

There you have it, the 10 very important skills you need to develop to parent intentionally. If you notices through out this blog post, we didn\’t put much emphasis on your Child , the focus was solely on you the parent. Our mantra in the academy is that parenting is all about you and not your Child. So you will need to tell yourself that you are the one who needs work first and not your Children.

Perfection is not part of this parenting journey, you must be willing to be humble, humble to own up your process, humble to go through the mess.The journey becomes smoother when you tell yourself that you are the one that needs the work and not your child.

©The Intentional Parent Academy™