Attentive Parents Are The Key to Their Children's Success

If you want your children to succeed in life, you'll need to support their interests and motivate them to do better. Find out more about the importance of attentive parents.

Everyone’s more or less clear about what a gifted child is and what characteristics they usually have. Generally, they’re smart children who are above average academically. In reality, it’s not a question of whether or not a child is gifted, as attentive parents are the key to their children’s success.

What’s more, children who aren’t geniuses can develop curiosity, persistence, and work ethic. To attain the skills that we often attribute to gifted children, typical kids just need the right support at home and school. So, just because a five-year-old can read an entire book and understand it doesn’t mean that, in adolescence, they’ll continue to have those abilities if their parents don’t nurture them.

High-achieving adults

Academically average children may be more likely to become high-achieving adults. Demonstrating the path to genius-level success is about more than intelligence. IQ isn’t fixed; the brain is malleable and new neural pathways develop as children grow.

In fact, they got there because of one common factor: parents who motivated and supported them. The outstanding adults in Bloom’s study worked very hard and consistently at something in which they’d felt motivated about as young people. In all cases, their parents empowered a strong work ethic.

Attentive parents, successful children

Next, the research we discussed above also indicates that the steps we take as parents when our children are preschoolers can benefit them later in their academic careers.

According to the Effective Pre-School, Elementary and High School study, which examined British families over a 15-year period, children whose parents supported them in reading as preschoolers did better in secondary school.

So, the idea that nurture, practice, and education can help average children excel is good news for many mothers. Just because your child can’t name all the capital cities in the US doesn’t mean they can’t achieve a high level of academic success in the future.

Attentive parents: the secret is persistence

Moreover, not even Albert Einstein, known as one of the smartest people in history, stood out as a remarkable child. He took a long time to speak as a toddler and then had trouble getting into the Zurich Polytechnic. According to Einstein himself, his ultimate success wasn’t due to being smarter than anyone else, but to persistence.

So, for the parent who has just asked their child for the umpteenth time to please not put rocks in their mouth, there’s a lot of hope for that child to be a geologist in the future if they’re led down the right path. If we can encourage curiosity and persistence among our children, it’ll be the best gift we can give them.

Always follow your childrens’ interests to achieve success

Motivating a child doesn’t mean forcing them to do things. If you think your child is talented in a subject that they don’t enjoy, don’t force them to do anything against their will.

What matters, above all, is that you allow them to realize for themselves how rewarding it is to be able to participate in that activity. The best way is to motivate them so that they feel good.

Let them realize that they can give a lot of themselves to achieve better results through persistence. And, most importantly, they should enjoy doing it. They should decide for themselves whether to continue practicing–there shouldn’t be any imposition or obligation to do so.

For this reason, parents should always respect the interests and wishes of their children. In this way, they’ll feel that they make the decisions that guide their lives and their interests. As a result, they’ll truly feel the motivation necessary to be able to continue on the path of their talent. A path that can lead them to succeed if they have enough attention from their parents.