The Parents Who Raise the Most Successful Children Are Doing One Thing Other People Avoid!

It is not discipline or pampering. And most people consider it cruel.

Photo by Tadeas P on Unsplash

Truth is, no good parent wants their child to suffer.

It's a natural instinct and It is human. However, a decades of research has shown that this intrinsic parental character is creating an entire generation that can't manage real life.

Every parents have this feelings of tightness in your chest when their child fails a test, loses a game or sits alone at lunch.

In most cases, we always feel the need to solve the problem or bare the pain of our children for them, so they don't feel it at all.

That's actually a urge that many parents would give in to.

On the other hand, the parents raising the most resilient, and most capable children do not do that.

The one thing they do is the one thing that looks very cruel from the outside, and this is it:

They allow their kids to sit in discomfort without saying a word.

They don't try to rescue or explain. They give no sympathy for the crime committed by their child.

Yeah! They try to be present but they don't intervene

Angela Duckworth, a psychologist spent years studying what sets high achievers apart, and her end result was not based on intelligence, talent, or opportunity.

It was grit. The ability to overcome failure and keep moving forward.

Grit, she discovered, can't be taught. It is cultivated — with repeated exposure to difficulty which the child must overcome by himself.

This has also been confirmed by another research at Stanford, stating that children who are given permission to struggle will have enhanced problem solving abilities, greater emotional tolerance and much increased confidence in their own ability to deal with difficult things than children who don't struggle at all.

In other word, if a child is rescued every time, they may never have to learn how to cope with difficulty. This is because they don't need to at all.

I know this from personal experience with my son, Tommy.

He was 11 years old when he got his first major school failure. It was too late for him. He knew it. I knew it too and my late wife Margaret knew it, and she was already putting on her glasses at 10 the night before, to help him pull it together.

I stopped her.

"Let him," I said softly.

She stared at me as if I was insane.

Tommy submitted something that wasn't satisfactory. He was being rewarded for what he did. He was a little embarrassed, angry and did not speak with me for four consecutive days and I didn't care.

Since that time he has never missed a deadline. Not in school. Not in college. Not even in his adult years.

In the long run, that grade didn't cause him any long term cost. But what it taught him is that he has the power to face his decisions and that they have repercussions.

Trying to save a child from suffering does not make him or her safe.

It tells them that they are not capable of dealing with pain. That there has to be someone who will come to rescue them. Their brain tells them that the problem is not a problem to overcome, but a signpost to look for assistance.

Then they grow up as adults who are unable to cope with difficulty.

That is NOT protection! That is a tragedy coming in the future.

You don't have to be cold or distant. You do not need to stop caring.

It's a matter of distinction; you need to learn to differentiate your comfort from their growth.

Before trying to help your child, ask yourself: Is this help dangerous — or is it just hard?

If it's difficult — then keep silence, stay close but let it be hard.

That is all the practice is!

The best parents that everyone admires – I mean those their children later become steady, capable, and self-assured adults, didn't go to these heights by helping their children avoid challenges.

They got there by relying on their children's ability to climb.

Comfortable children would always grow into fragile adults and uncomfortable children would grow into strong adults.

Love is the best thing you can do for a child when you believe they are always stronger than their discomfort even though they're crying and even if you don't want to see it break your heart.