What Makes Children Successful - RonaldMah

Ronald Mah, M.A., Ph.D.
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist,
Consultant/Trainer/Author
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What Makes Children Successful

Workshops-Consulting > Children's Behavior


What Makes Our Children Academically, Personally and Socially Successful?


FORMAT:
Lecture and Discussion- Participants are encouraged to make the workshop more relevant to their concerns by asking questions.

DESCRIPTION: This training offers basic goals for parenting children, guidance to empower a strong child, parenting principles, and styles of parenting that best help develop a healthy citizen from the child one starts with.

THREE GOALS FOR CHILDREN:
1. Positive sense of self, along with a sense of excellence
2. Strong work ethic
3. Sense of personal integrity and responsibility to others

PRINCIPLES FOR BECOMING STRONG, to build a strong successful child, good person... a loving partner and parent to be, and good citizen
Stress One must experience stress, since stress is what builds strength.  Avoiding stress,
avoids opportunities to grow.
Frustrate One must experience frustration to learn how to survive it and deal with it
successfully, since it accompanies life experiences, stresses, and challenges.  Avoiding frustration results in avoiding the stress that builds.
Fail One must experience and become comfortable of failure, since failure is a natural consequence of trying anything or learning anything.  Fear of failure results in one of two consequences: one will become socio-pathic and willing to win at all costs, no matter how harmful it is to oneself, others or the community; or, to guarantee no failure, one will not try.
Suffer While experiencing stress, frustration, and failure, one must also suffer in order to experience that one can suffer without being destroyed or overwhelmed; to discover ones resiliency.  If one feels that one cannot tolerate any suffering, then one will do extreme compulsive behaviors in order to avoid suffering.
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Sensitivity A person can endure stress, frustration, failure, and suffering, if his/her caring authoritative individuals has the sensitivity to understand his/her abilities, limitations, and capacities.  
Support With that sensitivity, then such caring authoritative individuals can offer the appropriate support that one needs to benefit from stress, frustration, failure, and suffering.
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Strength From the experiences with sensitive support, one will develop strength, and
Skills From the experiences with sensitive support, one will develop skills.
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Survive From the experiences, strength, and skills, one will develop a confidence that despite the difficulties and challenges of the world, they will survive.
Flourish Once one is confident that he/she can survive, then he/she can risk and have the opportunity to flourish in the world.

**All individuals must go through Stress, Frustration, Failure, & Suffering to grow powerful.  To build powerful successful children, parents must stress, frustrate, let their children fail, and make sure they suffer!  W/ sensitivity, they can support their children through this to develop strength & skills that will ensure survival and offer the possibility of flourishing.

SUCCESSFUL PARENTING has THREE + ONE COMPONENTS:
1. successful management of daily life and interrelationships at home, in school, and in the community;
2. helping children have a successful childhood- a sense of safety & security, family security, appropriate power and control, school success, self-esteem, positive peer relationships;
3. preparing their children for successful adult life- financial security and affluence, personal and family security, power and control in their lives;
4. accomplishing the first two components (daily management & a happy childhood) without harming the third (preparation for adult life).

SUCCESSFUL PARENTING means simultaneously, the PARENTS being able to AND
 preparing CHILDREN to:
Gain power & control in their adult lives; have successful careers; be successful in school (including college); acquire financial success- money; acquire skills useful in the society; develop values for successful choices in their lives; develop self-esteem; have a functional family; develop verbal-social-cultural fluency; avoid victimization; and be survivors.

Culture is the collection of ATTITUDES, VALUES, BELIEFS, & BEHAVIORS that promote SURVIVAL in the community one lives in.  
The culture of one society/community is often not successful in a different society/community!!

CULTURE tends to be CONSERVATIVE
Culture is usually very slow to respond to changes in the environment- historically the environment is extremely slow to change.
Currently, because of rapid technological changes and because of changing societies the environment has changed quickly and fundamentally, while culture remains slow and even resistant to change!!

In America, parents face at least three types of different societies/communities, where there are at least three different sets of cultural standards to consider:
Traditional (Country of Origin, family-of-origin, etc.) vs. American Society & Culture
Home vs. School vs. Work Society & Culture
Child vs. Teen vs. Adult Society & Culture

SUCCESSFUL PARENTING involves being aware of the demands of the societies ones child faces:
The CURRENT CHILDHOOD SOCIETY
The CURRENT TEEN SOCIETY
The CURRENT AMERICAN SOCIETY
The IMMINENT ADULT SOCIETY the CHILD will face

 The Adult's culture without adjustment cannot be successful for their children.
 Parents need to recognize and respect the culture of their children- and their survival instincts.
 Children face tremendous pressure to acquire the cultural standards of their communities.
 Cross-cultural conflict decreases with an appreciation of cultural differences and common needs.

Successful parenting leads to SELF-ESTEEM for the child and for the parent
Successful Parenting & being a successfully parented child in terms of self-esteem involve:
Significance, moral virtue, power & control, and competence.

PARENTS OF SUCCESSFUL CHILDREN:
• are considered significant by their peers and the community;
• live up to the moral virtue as good parents;
• feel they have more power & control in their lives;
• see themselves as competent raising children.

SUCCESSFULLY PARENTED CHILDREN
• benefit from being significant to the important people in their lives, including their parents;
• live up to the moral virtue as good children;
• have more power & control in their lives;
• feel competent doing the things that are important for selves and in pleasing their parents.

 An unexpected stress of parenting comes from the parents' expectation that their children would maintain the parents' cultural identity in America, or in the evolving society.
 Parents can be overwhelmed by the complexity of parenting Americanized (or modern) children, as well as dealing with other life issues.
 Parents need to attend to their own needs- especially their stress issues to be effective parents.

Parenting Styles/Results in Children

ADDRESS:
3056 Castro Valley Blvd., #82
Castro Valley, CA 94546
Ronald Mah, M.A., Ph.D.
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist, MFT32136
CONTACT INFORMATION:
office: (510) 582-5788
fax: (510) 889-6553
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