New Year's Resolutions
Thankfully, the fanfare of the winter holiday is over, and everyone is marginally satisfied with their family experiences and holiday gifts. Now with the start of the new year it is time to simplify life. Time to get down to what your gifted son or daughter really needs. Here are my New Year’s resolutions for you and your family!!!
1. Help make your child's school experiences and responsibilities with teachers, friends, and homework productive and positive.
2. If your child needs help, you should be quick to find them the extra support they need. When you procrastinate about getting help for your child, family stress escalates and your problem becomes more serious.
3. Friendships create bonds for children to explore their world and learn about life outside of their home. Encourage and nurture your child's social-emotional development and social skills. Parents of gifted kids are often blind to their son or daughter's social limitations, which can include shyness or a grandiose sense of power with others.
4. Parent-child interactions need to have focus and direction. When parents are overly strict or overly permissive, children fail to learn coping strategies and problem- solving approaches. They will be behind the eight ball when they try to interact with others outside of their home environment. Provide a variety of experiences with others that will broaden your child’s world view.
5. Be a stable and reliable parent who is in charge of adult decisions. Let your child make decisions with you. But remember your child is not your equal or helpless.
6. Make family time important and at a consistent time so that your children have time to talk with you and to be with you. Family time builds deep bonds between parent and child and makes the child feel safe.
7. Don’t over-react to your child’s challenges. Just react. Dial down your intensity about how serious you child’s negative feelings are. Children calm down faster than their parents. When you predict disaster you are setting up a likely disaster and teaching your child to embrace their learned helplessness.
8. Through your actions and decisions teach your child the value of resilience. When you teach your child that it is okay to make a mistake and learn from that mistake, you are teaching a very important lesson.