We put all our efforts to raise happy, kind and grateful children! How can this be achieved when all the odds are against us at this point?
We live in a chaotic world! We find ourselves surrounded by craziness only by watching the latest news! It makes our job as parents ten times harder! How can we control what children and most teenagers are being exposed to 24/7 without them being negatively influenced?
Well, we can’t! We can only try to teach them the basic difference between such daily exposure and the norm, and to start installing our family values early on!
Below are a few pointers highlighted by Harvard psychologists on raising kind and emotionally intelligent children:
Consider others feelings
Children will start taking others needs into consideration when they learn to honor their own commitments, even if it makes them personally unhappy. If your child wants to get out of a sport, ask him, how quitting would affect the rest of the team. If he wants to back-out from going to a birthday party, ask him how his friend would feel about him missing the party
Practice caring
Talk to them about what they see on TV! What is kind and what’s not!  What is justice or injustice? You can monitor their friends’ behavior as well and point out what is acceptable and what is not!
Let them express gratitude for the person who cares for them it could be a parent, a caregiver or a teacher, by doing something sweet such as preparing dinner and cleaning up after, writing a thank you note, a beautiful drawing or even doing house chores suitable for their age
Teach them to control anger
Talk about feelings. All feelings are okay, but they need to be managed!
Acknowledge feelings of anger and envy in children, however, explain that experiencing such feelings is not a reason to be mean to others, instead teach them how to self-sooth and control anger!
One way to calm down is to step back from a frustrating situation, find a quiet spot to reflect, think or even play a game alone or with another friend until they are calm enough to talk things through with an adult.
Raising morally driven children can be frustrating. They do need adults to coach them through every stage of childhood, by turning unpleasant situations at times into learning opportunities! Their number one role model is YOU – no pressure! 😉