How to teach your child work ethic
Got Kids? 15 Age-Appropriate Ways To Teach Them Work Ethic And Business Skills
“Determination” and “ hard work” are buzzwords that teens love to include on college and entry-level job applications. However, without a solid understanding of what these words mean, these young adults won’t be able to live up to a university or employer’s expectations.
So when is the best time to start teaching your kids the value of a good work ethic and perseverance? It doesn’t need to wait until they’re almost out of the house. We asked 15 members of Forbes Coaches Council what parents can do to encourage children and teens to learn those vital business skills early on in an age-appropriate way. Here’s what they had to say.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Emphasize The Importance Of Eye Contact
Interviews are all about confidence. A simple nonverbal cue to avoid during an interview is failing to make eye contact by looking down or sideways. It exudes insecurity and a lack of confidence, portraying to a potential employer that you’re unsure of your answers and, potentially, don’t know what you’re talking about. So, be confident, be secure in the value you bring and crush your interview. - Jon Dwoskin, The Jon Dwoskin Experience
2. Teach Them How To Monetize Their Talents And Skills
Standard education equals a standard life in today's world. Self-education is the future. Instead of teaching children about chores and allowances, teach them about the power of identifying, extracting, marketing and selling their talents so that they are passionate about what they do. Teach them about investments and passive income streams. Teach them to think outside the box. - Erin Miller, Erin Miller INC
Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches.
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3. Ask For A Made-Up Bed And A Clean Room
Parents can begin developing excellence early in a child's life. Teaching the importance of maintaining order can begin with requiring a made-up bed upon waking and keeping a tidy room. This process development helps to accentuate the management functions of organizing and controlling. Involvement in the household budget can also create financial aptitude that will be beneficial in the workplace. - Dr. Melissa Weathersby, 5-Star Empowerment
4. Let Them Fail And Find A Way Forward
Let your kids fail—often. Finishing that essay for them or building that diorama is a disservice to their long-term success. Instead, encourage them to do what they can, accept the outcome and learn from the experience. Why were they unable to complete the assignment? How can they remedy that for the next time? Building persistence and resilience are foundational to their life-long success.
- Lydia Loizides, Talentedly
5. Design A 'Job Description' For Your Child
Create your child's "job description" and their allowance is their "comp." Reward the behaviors you want to reinforce and have them set goals for what they want to do with their money. If it is something out of their reach, provide bonus opportunities or "employer matching." Provide feedback along the way, and set a scheduled time for them to make their case if they think they deserve an increase. - Brad Elson, Palmer OSG
6. Encourage Them To Complete Homework First
Teach your children that school is their "job." Learning is the result produced and homework and studying are the actions to take to achieve their learning objectives. Suggest that they put their job first, where homework and studying come above all else, especially above TV or phone time. Of course, parents should model this with their own work, putting forth the effort and being unstoppable! - Jennifer Wilson, ConvergenceCoaching, LLC
7.
Don't Let Them Quit Mid-Season
Parents need to make sure they do not let their children quit an activity mid-season or mid-semester. The middle of most things is hard and this is when everyone is stressed and tired. Being a good teammate, even if they do not have a major role on the team, will teach them the value of commitment and diligence. Good parenting isn't about making kids happy. It is about building their character. - Catherine Hickem, The Dash Group
8. Model The Behaviors You Expect
Parents can encourage development by demonstrating expected behaviors of discipline, humility and courage. By mirroring work tasks, asking problem-solving questions and reinforcing efforts well done, the youth are given an opportunity to develop strong relations, work ethic and business skills. Youth who learn from mirroring and skill-practicing gain the values of discipline and hard work. - Lori Harris, Harris Whitesell Consulting
9.
Develop Global Citizens
Help your children or teens understand their position in the family, in their homes, in their community and in the world. Expose your children to diverse viewpoints, perspectives, people and cultures. Nurture your child's strengths and talents so that they know how they can contribute and serve others. Encourage your child to demonstrate gratitude and to understand what others may need. - Sinive Seely, Sinive Seely Coaching and Consulting
10. Give Them Opportunities To Earn Money
Parents need to encourage work ethic and business skills by giving their children responsibilities in the household and giving them ways to earn money. It does not serve them to hand them money and have no responsibility in the family or the household. It infantilizes them and they do not grow a healthy self-esteem this way. It is imperative to their growth and self-worth to feel accomplished. - Dori Gatter, Dr. Dori Gatter
11.
Meet Them Where They Are
One of the best ways to get younger people excited about the important things in life (that they don't feel are important) is to connect them to what they believe is important. Want them to understand finances? Teach them how their allowance leads to the video game they want. Want them to learn communication? Show them how communication will help them in relationships. Meet them where they are. - Cody Dakota Wooten, The Leadership Guide
12. Participate In A Fundraiser Together
Look for any existing simple fundraisers to do together. My seven-year-old had a school holiday bazaar fundraiser. In the process, my son learned product design (clay ornaments that didn't fall apart), pricing (creating package discounts), marketing (what signs are effective or not), networking (building relationships with other vendors) and finances (calculating each item sold against expenses). - Anna Choi, Conscious Business Coach - Anna Sun Choi LLC
13.
Praise The Process
Parents often praise a child's result or outcome, but they should focus more on praising the process. For example, instead of praising their child for building a tower of blocks or earning an A on a test, they could praise the child for how focused they were during the process, how they never gave up whenever the block tower began to fall or how they studied each night for the test. - Colleen Hauk, Balance Point Coaching
14. Compliment Their Choices And Character
Too often I hear parents complimenting their kids on their looks, talents or other things they can't control. This can tend to feed narcissistic tendencies because they think it's what you value most about them. As the first authority figures in their lives, we can help them prepare for their career better by complimenting choices and actions that take character strength. - Pam Boney, tilt365.com
15. Create An Environment That Develops Self-Worth
Work ethic never goes out of style.
Developing work ethic entails going to work on time and treating everybody with respect and dignity—no matter their status—because there’s no substitute for human dignity. Once we create an environment that promotes a sense of meaningfulness, it’s easier for our children and teens to repeat what they have observed. - J. Ibeh Agbanyim, Focused Vision Consulting, LLC
10 Ways to Teach Your Children a Great Work Ethic
According to the magazine World, skipping work just got a lot easier. “Millions of Americans work dead-end jobs, and sometimes they just need a day off,” said John Liddell, who helped found Vision Matters, which sells notes as part of its Excused Absence Network. “People are going to lie anyway,” said Liddell, who’ll sell a fake jury summons, forged doctor notes, or a funeral program with your name listed among the pallbearers to dishonest employees.
We would count John’s ethical fallacies if we had time. How do we instruct our children to swim upstream against a slacker culture? Here are the 10 ways to teach your children a great work ethic.
1. Understand the fact that you always teach, regardless of intention.
The question isn’t “if” you are teaching but “what” you are teaching. It’s important to understand that home is a natural and continuous learning environment. Everything we do instructs our children. What are your children learning about work by observing you?
2. Example, example, example.
If parents own a positive work ethic, then we’re already halfway there. This is a great opportunity for “do as I do” to support “do as I say.”
3. Balance is job one.
A work ethic that sacrifices family turns out to be all work and no ethic.Every family has its own take on how much work is too much. But it’s essential that we teach our children balance in terms of work. In his book Quiet Strength, Coach Tony Dungy shares how he deliberately taught his coaching staff and players that family time was their priority. A work ethic that sacrifices family turns out to be all work and no ethic.
4. Keep family priorities in order.
The simple phrase “fun after the work is done” associates relaxation with completion rather than relaxation as escape. People experience more satisfaction in their leisure when it is preceded by a satisfactory job performance.
5. Work with your children whenever possible.
How is a guide different from a boss? A boss typically barks out orders and waits for results, whereas a guide is willing to walk alongside. As dads who have to teach our kids a work ethic, our role is that of guide.
6. Take your children with you when you volunteer.
Pick up garbage together on the side of the street. Join a team that fixes things at the park. Hook up with volunteer efforts at church or other community organizations. Work associated with service is a key building block to the value of work across the board.
7. Expose them to stories about heroes who learned the value of work.
There are hundreds of great stories to reinforce this point.
Movies, books, articles. Read them together and then live them, day by day.
8. Make chores at home a shared responsibility.
Every member of the family should have assigned chores on a routine basis. Change them around; help each other out; take turns with the ones no one really enjoys. Don’t wimp out on the chores, and don’t let your kids wimp out, either.
9. Don’t pay kids for routine chores.
Compliment. Encourage. Throw in the occasional treat, “because you kids have been so responsible this week!” Admire their good work, but don’t pay them for fulfilling their responsibilities. However, do consider paying your children for jobs that go above and beyond their normal chores. It’s a wonderful way for them to learn the value of a buck.
10. Have a “chore chart” on the refrigerator.
And feel free to use this one.
Sound off: How do you teach your kids to have a good work ethic?
How to cultivate perseverance and a serious attitude to work
We teach a child the skills to overcome difficulties.
“I won’t quit” instead of “I’ve had enough”
By blowing dust off children, we deprive them of the experience of finding solutions and overcoming difficulties on their own. The other extreme is not to help them at all in this search and overcoming, to leave children alone with their tasks. How to find the golden mean? How to instill respectable perseverance and focus on results in children? About this in his book “The Most Valuable. What is really important to teach a child so that he grows up successful and happy,” writes child psychologist Madeline Levine. We are publishing excerpts from the book, which is being prepared for publication by the Mann, Ivanov and Ferber publishing house. nine0003
Unnecessarily often intervening and "protecting", being unable to tolerate their mistakes and failures, we deprive children of the ability to develop and strengthen the coping skills necessary for good orientation in developmental tasks and for understanding their inner essence. College admissions counselors call such candidates "fail free" and know that they are unlikely to succeed in difficult circumstances.
How do you know if you're good at something or not if you haven't had a chance to try, fail, and pick yourself up again? nine0003
How else will you figure out how to regain your balance after an ordeal if you weren't left alone to think about different options? It is easy to understand how a child's self-image deteriorates with the well-intentioned but overprotective and even intrusive parenting style that has become the norm today. Of course, we pay attention, advise when necessary, reduce risk when necessary, and never leave children alone with their emotions. But we must give them enough inner space and life experience so that they learn to protect themselves, which, as you know, leads to well-being and high resistance - signs of true success. nine0003
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Here's how we can help children develop their own coping skills. Sometimes we "transmit" our favorite skills simply by showing them by personal example. But while children learn to observe how we respond to challenges and recover from a crisis, they are not us.
Genetics and temperament play some role in determining which coping skills we find easiest. We naturally build on our strengths. At first, the extroverted parent may be enthusiastic, while the introverted child may be creative. Both can be equally effective in solving problems. nine0003
The more coping skills, the more resilience.
It is important that we understand that resilience is not a quality that a child either has or does not have. As Ken Ginsburg, one of the leading resilience experts in the United States, points out, “Resilience is not a character trait.”
The same child may show great resilience in some circumstances (“My grades in math are pretty bad, I’ll have to study a lot more”) and not so good in others (“My friends didn’t take me shopping today; my relationship with them collapsed I'm a complete loser." nine0003
The degree of resistance always fluctuates. It depends on temperament, support and circumstances. We build the resilience of our children by protecting them from excessive risk and by providing supports and circumstances (this should include giving children the opportunity to cope with manageable and age-appropriate challenges) that promote coping skills.
We focused too much on the "problems" of children, especially teenagers. There seems to be a lot of advice on how to talk about what not to do. Don't take drugs. Don't have sex. Don't drink and drive. Don't neglect school lessons. But I would say that the best thing for our children is when we not only tell them what not to do, but also help them understand what they should do. "Don't do drugs" isn't much help if the person wants to experience new and risky experiences. But by developing self-control, demonstrating it by example, and noticing and approving it in our children, we increase the likelihood that they will be able to take care of themselves in the series of problems and temptations that life has in store for them. nine0003
What are the fundamental coping skills?
Resourcefulness
Resourcefulness is active, not reactive. Instead of waiting until the last day to enroll in school driving classes, the resourceful child signs up early to secure a place in the group.
Resourceful kids plan their activities so they don't get overwhelmed and get enrolled in GCSE prep and basketball at the same time. Ingenuity helps children not only solve problems, but also avoid them. Resourceful children know how to make the most of the situation and the resources at their disposal. nine0003
One of the reasons that hinder the development of resourcefulness is the fast pace of our lives. Resourcefulness, by definition, means trying different approaches to a situation in order to find the most effective solution.
One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is time to develop coping skills. Remember that childhood is a walk, not a race. A resourceful child needs the opportunity to tinker, experimenting with both time and available options to find the best solution. nine0003
What to do
Think of a small task. For example, before soccer practice, you always bring your 12-year-old daughter some snack food. Don't do this from time to time.
Tell her the night before that she will have to cook her own food. Let her figure out how to get a banana and juice (bring from home, buy). Make sure these tasks are age appropriate. Show how happy you are when she comes up with a solution.
Tell children about solutions to their everyday problems. If you find out at the last minute that the suit you planned to wear to an important presentation is still in the dry cleaners, tell them in a few words how you feel (probably disappointed) and how you solved the problem (take a deep breath, and then find something something else in the wardrobe). Let children know that minor disappointments are part of everyday life, but dwelling on them makes it difficult to find solutions. nine0003
Teach your children that there is no one right answer to most problems. Sometimes being resourceful means tinkering with something, sometimes taking a break, sometimes inventing something yourself, and sometimes consulting someone else.
Teach your child to calm down (close eyes, inhale, count to ten, go outside and take a walk) so that the choice is not dictated by emotions.
The inability to control emotions is the enemy of resourcefulness. A cold mind can allocate resources much better than an agitated one. nine0003
What not to do
Don't get involved too soon. Of course, you are much more resourceful than your child. But now you are trying to teach him ingenuity. This takes time and patience. It’s often much easier to fix things yourself: “Don’t you have a clean pair of socks? Here, take mine." Of course, this can only be done occasionally.
If you overdo it, you will miss the opportunity to teach your daughter to put dirty socks in the laundry basket, and instead reinforce her belief that someone will always take care of her. nine0003
Don't put yourself under a lot of stress, lest your own resourcefulness falter. It's hard for me to count how many teenagers have told me they started drinking because their parents were addicted to drinking when they were stressed. Since we all have fairly high levels of stress on a regular basis (it's worth thinking about, by the way), relax in healthy ways.
Better a yoga session than too much martini.
Don't lose your temper over your child's limited resources. A tired child who asks his older brother to finish his math homework for him is trying to solve the problem of conflicting requirements. He knows that the teacher expects homework, you expect him to get a good night's sleep, and he wants to be both responsible and rested. nine0003
Your job is to set limits (“Forcing your brother to do homework is not good is cheating”) and, just as importantly, to teach your child to see a wider choice of possibilities within himself - for example, doing homework during lunch at school or Talk to your teacher about extra time after class. You are not doing this for the child, but sharing wisdom with him.
The right attitude to work (work ethic)
Parents, frustrated by their children's grades, ask me the same questions: “My child is very smart, but he is not interested in learning. What should I do?"; “My child is very smart, but he is more interested in friends than grades.
What should I do?" nine0003
Question "What to do?" good, he is solution oriented. But usually directed at the wrong problem. Most parents assume that if they could only get their kids to think more about their grades, their grades would certainly improve. May be. Sometimes marks reflect knowledge and indicate quality training. But sometimes they reflect superficial and easily forgotten knowledge.
Our children do poorly in school, not because they don’t spend enough time preparing for tests, but because in some cases, overpreparing for them interferes with what we traditionally do best: educate, engage students, encourage curiosity, value creativity and innovation. nine0003
Children learn well when they are fully involved in the learning process.
By involvement, I mean interest, soul investment, and intrinsic motivation. Engaged students have higher grades, better mental and physical health, and are better able to work hard, smoothly, and with optimal effort. In other words, engagement in the learning process and a good work ethic go hand in hand.
The diligence and perseverance necessary for successful learning stems from an interest in the material itself and in its significance for their self-perception. nine0003
People with a good work ethic tend to have a positive attitude towards themselves, are good at getting things done, are solid, don't need constant positive feedback from others, and develop good relationships with peers and colleagues. With the qualities that make up the right work ethic, when faced with problems, children are focused on the solution and do not give up trying ahead of time.
We think too narrowly when we think of work ethic only in terms of school or grades; a work ethic is part of what makes us successful in everything from gardening to playing scrabble to parenting. This is our main approach to life's inevitable challenges. It's about not giving up and doing your best. nine0003
The world is full of opportunities - find the ones that match your child's abilities and interests. If it's a school subject, talk to the teacher.
Try to pinpoint the problem before it turns into a "I'm just not good at math" attitude. Be by your child's side even when you set the bar and make sure he takes it. “I know it's hard to train every day, but I admire your perseverance. It will pay off in full." As I said above, children, as a rule, live up to our expectations. Keep the bar high. Tolerate the anger that may be directed at you when you know they can do better and insist on trying harder. And most importantly, make sure they know that ultimately their success will be determined by their attitude to work, not just how smart or talented they are. nine0003
What to do
Be enthusiastic about doing hard work. Some parents are so overworked that their children think that any hard work entails stress and fatigue. Who wants to join this club? Let your child know that when you work hard, you feel a sense of accomplishment and pride. Not all the time, but often enough to make hard work worthwhile.
Make sure the amount of work the child has to do is reasonable.
If the task is laborious and no effort will help him complete it, then there will be no benefit from the effort expended. nine0003
Many children shed tears while sitting for hours on homework that is completely impossible to do either in content or in volume. Talk to your child's teachers if the amount of homework seems excessive.
In addition to focusing on effort, perseverance, and discipline, be sure to pay attention to other components of a good work ethic, such as integrity or the ability to communicate and cooperate. Often, children with good social skills are simply considered popular, and parents beg them to socialize less and study more. But these same children tend to be very cooperative and have excellent communication skills. They will certainly be in demand as workers. nine0003
Pay attention to what activities your child is willing to put in the effort and what solutions work well for them. Let him know that many skills can be transferred from one activity to another.
“I noticed that you go to your room and turn on the music when you need to focus on difficult math problems. Maybe you should try the same with Spanish verbs that you have trouble with?”
What not to do
Don't expect all your kids to try the same. Intensity and perseverance of effort are properties of temperament, so they are different for each child. The right attitude to work consists of many components. Focus on developing the ones that are easier for your child. nine0003
Do not worry that your child will be angry with you when you call him to discipline. In no case do not humiliate or apply harsh, arbitrary punishments. But keep in mind that your ability to discipline your child will ensure that he learns self-discipline. Children are not born with a programmed understanding of rules and regulations. They are taught what and how to appreciate, their parents and the surrounding community through a combination of praise or encouragement and demonstration of disappointment or disciplinary action.
Your love helps children bond with you; your discipline helps them manage themselves. We often find it easier to love children than to discipline them. But both are essential components of a good work ethic. nine0003
Do not insist on the child's best efforts in absolutely everything. For some reason, we began to think that children should be good at many things, although most people in the world are really good at one thing and do not differ in special achievements in other areas. Talented people do what they do best and are interested in other areas at the hobby level, where the standards are not so high.
Focus on the things that matter most to you and your child. Too often, good kids are criticized for not putting their best effort into the most trivial things. nine0003
Source:
Madeline Levine “The Most Valuable. What is really important to teach a child so that he grows up successful and happy ”(Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2021)
Photo: Collection / iStock
How to teach a child take care of yourself | Chalk
Modern children are most often helpless in everyday life, and only the parents themselves should be blamed for this.
In the era of technological progress, some skills, such as minor repairs or cooking, seem optional to us. And the parents decide to give up: if he grows up, he will figure it out. But as a result, our children grow up insecure and unadapted to life infantiles. How to avoid this and what a preschooler, a primary school student and a teenager should be able to do at home, says psychologist Yana Filimonova. nine0003
Preschooler, five or six years old
Preschooler needs to learn self-care and basic hygiene skills. Know how to bathe, comb your hair and brush your teeth. Dress independently, put on shoes, tie shoelaces, fasten zippers and buttons on clothes and make the bed.
Children as young as five or six are quite capable of keeping their room in order. Perhaps they still have difficulty planning such a difficult and complex task as cleaning. But with the parents' tips: remove the paints, then lay out the books and toys and sweep the floor - they can already cope with it.
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The task of parents is not to scold or do things for the child, but to suggest and gradually delegate responsibility
When a daughter or son has mastered some skill, one should no longer do it for them.
How to raise a real loser. 7 Bad Advice for Parents
Preschoolers can and should have simple chores around the house: water the flowers, help mom make Sunday cake, take care of the turtle, set the table for dinner. They will likely need periodic reminders. The function of self-control at this age is not yet fully formed. nine0003
Junior schoolchild, seven to ten years old
A junior student gradually learns to control the result of his work and the regularity of completing tasks. He has well-developed fine motor skills and spatial imagination. What should a child learn at the age of seven or ten?
Basic food preparation . Making yourself a sandwich, frying an egg or cooking porridge is a feasible task for an elementary school student.
And at least he should be able to heat up food and wash the dishes after him. nine0003
Household duties. Elementary students should have regular household chores, whether it be participating in weekly cleaning, washing dishes on certain days, or walking the dog.
Handling household appliances . Modern children easily master tablets and mobile phones. This means that learning how to use a microwave, vacuum cleaner and turn on a washing machine is also not difficult. The child must know the safety precautions when handling household appliances. nine0003
7 aspects of parenting that you can't do without a father
Basic medical skills . A schoolchild should not only know the ambulance phone and rescue service, but be able to at least disinfect a wound, bandage a cut. And to distinguish a cream from burns from an ointment used for bruises and sprains.
Minor repair skills . This, of course, is not about repairing a ball mixer or soldering a wire.
But by the age of ten, it would be nice for a child to be able to change a light bulb, hammer a nail and learn how to handle a thread and a needle - just in case. nine0003
The main mistake of parents at this stage is to start dividing work into "male" and "female". The ability to screw in a light bulb to replace a burned out one, spread a sandwich or sew up a torn sleeve is equally necessary for both boys and girls. You should not deprive them of half of their useful skills because of belonging to one or another gender.
Teenager
Ideally, by the age of 14-16, a person should learn to serve his own life. So:
Be able to use a washing machine . Do not wash white with color powder, do not boil silk and woolen items - in general, be able to wash and not ruin things. And most importantly, do not think that clean shirts and jeans appear in the closet by themselves.
Prepare at least a few simple meals and know where to buy prepared foods .
Cooking these days is becoming more and more a hobby, but a teenager should be able to feed himself if necessary. It’s good if he presents his approximate diet for a week or at least a few days ahead. That is, setting the task “we are leaving for the country, left you money, buy yourself food and eat well” should not confuse a teenager. nine0003
By the way, this is a good test exercise. What will you buy if you stay alone (alone) for a few days? What will you cook from this? Perhaps the family budget allows you to order ready-made food. But I want to be sure that the child will be capable of something more than calling pizza delivery.
Recognize and track health problems . This should be taught separately. Especially considering that in high school, serious study loads coincide with the restructuring of the body: rapid growth and hormonal changes. Younger children usually complain to their parents, but teenagers can tolerate and hush up quite serious problems. nine0003
How to teach a child to be independent
A teenager must learn to pay attention to regular pain in any part of the body, to monitor the condition of the teeth.
Know where to go for help in case of an injury. Girls should learn to monitor the regularity and nature of the menstrual cycle. By this age, it can only be established. But too much bleeding, severe pain and other alarming symptoms should be a reason to seek help from parents and a doctor. nine0003
Know the minimum stock of clothes and shoes needed for each season . By the age of 16, a son or daughter can already keep track of the contents of their wardrobe and inform their parents that they do not have enough warm boots for the winter or T-shirts for the summer.
Have an idea about the main items of family expenses . It is clear that a teenager is unlikely to reduce the budget, but he needs to have an idea of \u200b\u200bwhere the money goes every month. For example, rent or mortgage, utility bills, food and clothing expenses. Payment for the Internet and mobile phones of all family members, tutors and sports section, car repair and maintenance, vacation.
