EP 049 How to stop being obsessed with your child winning
Stephanie Burge is a coach who works with elite athletes and has seen the impact of our cultural obsession with winning.
If you panic that your child isn't winning in the way you would like, here are Stephanie's top 10 tips for changing your perspective.
You can contact Stephanie via her website or on LinkedIn
10 Practical tips
- Focus on the right stuff
Some of the most together children I know are raised in houses that are a mess, by parents who turn up late and wear mismatched socks. When parenting life becomes overwhelming, perhaps they knew what to let go and what to put first. Kindness matters. Socks...not so much.
- Be patient
Lots of highly performing children were not always great as children develop physically and emotionally at different times.
- Do not assume they will want to follow in your footsteps
Children have different genes and different environmental influences. They are not you. Just because you were good at something does not mean they will be.
- School doesn’t suit everyone
Accept that some children never fit into the sausage machine of school life, yet may excel in the real world beyond the confines of the classroom.
- Take a break
Taking a holiday or just changing your environment is important to reset your perspective when everything gets too much.
- Establish boundaries
Everyone needs time to relax and just ‘be’, without the pressure of having to achieve anything. Switch off your phones, stop living life through the eyes of an Instagram story.
- Check in
If your children are obsessing about highly competitive activities are they doing this for the love of the activity, for you, or for themselves?
- Focus on effort not on the end result
Always ensure children know you don’t think any less of them because they have failed at something. What matters is that they gave their best effort.
- Build resilience
Never do anything for a child that the child can do for themselves; but don’t promote heroic individual strength of character either as they need to know you are there for them if times get tough.
- Use your intuition
As a parent you know your children better than anyone, and if something they are working towards doesn’t feel right and is making them unhappy then stop. Even if it works against the grain of securing their ‘winning future’ don’t worry, it will often be for the best
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To contact me, use email address lifedrama@jennyjarvis.co.uk
Website: https://www.jennyjarvis.co.uk/
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