Your elementary schooler will live up (or down) to expectations PDF Print E-mail
Your child will live up to your expectations. Or, she'll live down to them. That's the advice of Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg. He says there are several ways you can help children learn to feel that they can handle any situation.
Here are some tips:

* Help your child recognize that she has individual strengths. Not every child (and not every adult) is good at everything. But knowing that she is a great reader--or Ssoccer player--can help her feel more competent and confident.
* Don't overprotect. Yes, parents always want children to be safe. But if you are always stepping in to handle every tough situation, your child will assume it's because she can't do so for herself.
* Let your child make decisions. Even two-year-olds can decide if they want to wear the red shirt or the yellow one. As your child grows older, she should get to make more and more choices. But once she makes those choices, she needs to learn to live with the consequences.
* Let your child know you have faith in her. That doesn't mean you have to praise everything she does. But kids who know someone believes in them will grow up to believe in themselves.

Reprinted with permission from the March 2010 issue of Parents make the difference!® (Elementary School Edition) newsletter. Copyright © 2010 The Parent Institute®, a division of NIS, Inc. Source: Bonny McClain, "Building Resilience in Children," Healthy Children, Winter 2007, www.aap.org/healthychildren/07winter/bldgresil.pdf.