Advice for Raising Responsible Citizens for Tomorrow

We all want parenting advice that provides us with the tools we need to raise happy healthy children. Good parenting does not result from using a standardized recipe or cookie cutter approach to the many challenges our offspring present to us.

Good parenting really comes from learning as you go. Ask yourself, "What kind of adults do I want my children to be?" and then set about to create the circumstances that will allow that to happen.

You want your children to be "happy" but if you focus on making your children happy you will not be providing them with the skills they need to create their own happiness. What you need to be doing is raising your children to be responsible, reliable, and productive adults.

Here are some parenting tips on how to raise responsible, reliable, and productive citizens for tomorrow's society.

1. Let your children make mistakes - your child can never learn how to make a good decision if he is not allowed to make a bad one. As the parent you have more wisdom and knowledge about risk and it is your responsibility to assess the possible risk and consequences of a bad decision. Give your child the responsibility for making decisions that have consequences which are of low risk and age appropriate. Parents need to give over the responsibility of decision making and control to the child. This needs to be timed properly not only for the child's age level but also by the child's individual maturity level and trustworthiness.

2. Do not rescue your children from the consequences of her own mistakes. If your child harms someone else with her actions she needs to apologize and if she breaks someone else's property then she needs to replace it. This can start with children when they are very young. If your child is not directly connected to the consequences of her own actions she can never develop a sense of responsibility and accountability for what she does. Your child has to make reparations for harm she caused someone else and it is highly recommended that you are involved in that reparation but only in a way that assists her. Your child should be involved from start to finish in carrying out the necessary apology or actions needed to make things right again.

3. Let your child see you make mistakes but more importantly let your child hear you talk about them and identify why that decision was wrong and what you learned from it. Then do not make the same mistake again! If you do not change your behaviour as a result of what you have learned your child will identify your insincerity and lack of integrity very quickly and know that your statements are meaningless. In short he will learn that you "talk the talk" but you do not "walk the walk". Your child does not learn from your mistakes, your child learns by seeing you learn from your mistakes. Engaging your child in a rationale analysis of why things went wrong for you will help them to develop skills of critical inquiry that will serve them well in adult life.

4. Take responsibility for your own mistakes. Most things that happen to you in life are the result of your own actions. If your child sees you taking responsibility she is less likely to see herself as a victim of circumstance and is more likely to feel empowered and in control of her own life.

5. Apologize when you are wrong. You cannot and should not expect yourself to be perfect. If you were wrong in your judgment say so. "I am so sorry I yelled at you like that, it was very unkind and I apologize. However, you did not follow the rules and so the punishment still stands."

6. Teach your child how to ask for help. Perhaps the greatest life skill you can teach your child is that nobody can do everything by themselves all the time. As parents we spend so much time trying to raise independent citizens of tomorrow we forget to teach our children how to ask for help. In order to be a productive and positive citizen your child needs to know when he is out of his league and how to seek out help from those who are best equipped to help him. So many problems could be solved so easily if people would just recognize that they have a problem and seek out ways to prevent it from developing into something more complicated.

The best common sense parenting advice for raising your children to be reliable responsible adults? Be a good role model.

Like it or not your children will quite likely grow up to be just like you but in a slightly different package.