Parenting isn’t an easy job. Kids don’t come with an instruction book and for eighteen years you have to learn to be a parent. Your job is to guide your child through his or her life. As a parent, you have to parent through the ABC’s. And one of the most important letters of parenting is E which includes educating, encouraging, and empowering your child.
One of your first jobs as a parent is to educate your child. You are their first teacher. You teach him or her how to walk, their first words, the facts of life, and much more. But what your teach your child isn’t as important as how you teach them.
The way you educate your child throughout their life determines what kind of adult they will become. You are molding them into mini you’s. Your actions and words educate your child. As a parent, you won’t be a perfect teacher, but the way your teach is important.
Lead and guide your child through example. Show and tell them right from wrong. Educate him or her to be the best they can be. Educate your child to be positive roll model, a leader not a follower.
It’s your job to teach your child for eighteen years and what you teach them stays with them the rest of their life. Stay focused, positive, and mindful of how your educate your child.
Another way you will parent through the ABC’s is to encourage your child. When they fall, you have to be there to pick them up. From their first steps to their first mistake, your job is to encourage him or her. Kids make a lot of mistakes in eighteen years and most learn from those mistakes. But if you’re not an encourager, your child could keep making the same mistakes.
There are three main ways you need to encourage your child: words, love, and hope. When you encourage your child with positive words, you show them love and give them hope. They will still stumble and fall, but they will know you are there to pick them up and guide them in the right direction.
Encourage your child not only through the bad times, but in the good as well. You are their first cheerleader, but don’t cheer from the sidelines. Get in there with positive, uplifting words.
The last E of parenting through the ABC’s is empowerment. As a parent, you can set your child up for failure without even realizing what you are doing. Your words and actions can lead to failure instead of success. Empowerment is one of the most powerful parenting tools.
From the time your child is old enough to understand the world around them and what actions get their way, your job is to set them up for success, not failure. Life is filled with scrapes and falls, but when you empower your child, you give them the tools to pick themselves up and go forward. Fill your child with positive thoughts and words. They are going to fall, let them! But empower them to get back up and start over. If you give your child the positive resources they need, you are giving them success, strength, and spirit.
The E’s of parenting ABC’s isn’t easy, but you will learn as you grow. If you educate, encourage, and empower your child not only will they grow, but so will you.
