Allowing Your Children to Become: Expect Excellence Part 2

Expect excellence from them. Be able and willing to say, “No, that’s not the best you can do!”

On my last blog, I began addressing the issue of encouraging your children but also not letting them fall into a state of complacency. The wasting of talent, potential, and creativity of a human being must be the gravest of all wastes.

As a loving parent, you want to always encourage your child. But, there does come a time, when and if you see your child “coasting” that you may need to step up to the plate and discuss that. From the day you bring your child home from the hospital you want to open those lines of communication and keep them open. You are the encourager and the disciplinarian. Hard balance. But your kids need to know where the boundaries are. Actually, children are more comfortable and more stable if they know what the boundaries are—and how they can function within those boundaries.

Sounds like a paradox, doesn’t it? Encourage creativity but insert be clear on boundaries. A child that does not know the boundaries, they may wander and be confused. Within an environment where children know how to function confidently—but where they can have the freedom to explore their potentialities, they can thrive.

BE willing to sit down and speak of times when they are not doing their best and are “slacking”. Encourage them. Give them the support and learning needed to excel. Expect them to maximize their potential—and they will. Expect them to fail and they will. Life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You, as a parent, create a self fulfilling prophecy for your child. Expect the best. And teach them to expect the best from themselves.

And, always with love.