The Happiest, Most Successful Kids All Have This Rarely Discussed Skill, Research Shows. Here Are 3 Ways Parents Can Teach It
Parents spend a lot of time worrying about things like work ethic and empathy. Maybe they should focus more on this.
EXPERT OPINION BY JESSICA STILLMAN, CONTRIBUTOR, INC.COM @ENTRYLEVELREBEL
Parents worry about teaching their kids to be empathetic, ethical, hard working, and creative. Science suggests they should probably spend more time thinking about whether they’re kind to themselves.
Self-compassion, a boatload of research shows, has profound effects on our happiness and success throughout life. Learning to speak to yourself with the same gentleness and understanding you’d show a friend in similar circumstances helps us improve our mental health, perform at our peak, be more resilient, beat procrastination, and even, according to one new study out of China, avoid impulse buys and stick to your budget.
For entrepreneurs who want to set their kids up for happiness and success and life, nurturing self-compassion is a no brainer. But, when it comes to parenting, it’s a quality that gets a lot less attention than intelligence, creativity, or grit.
Part of that is likely a lack of awareness of the immense benefits of self-compassion. But another part is probably not knowing what to do with that knowledge once you have it. How can parents actively nurture self-compassion in their kids? Here too science can help.
3 simple ways parents can nurture self-compassion in their kids
Jamie Lynn Tatera is an educator who focuses on cultivating self-compassion in kids. She took to the blog of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center recently to offer parents suggestions they can start implementing today. If you’re looking for a deep dive, check out the complete article. But to get you started, here are her suggestions in brief:
- Talk to your child like you want them to talk to themselves. Your voice in your child’s ear today becomes, in many cases, the voice in their head when they’re grown. So when you show your kid empathy and support, you’re not only being kind now, but also teaching them how to be kind to themselves in the future. “A good question we can ask ourselves when we are addressing a child is this: Is this the voice that I want this child to internalize?” suggests Tatera.
- Model self-compassion. As a parent, it can be uncomfortable to share your screw-ups and less admirable moments with your kids. But there’s a good reason to do so. If your kids see you being kind to yourself when you stumble, they’ll learn that the best way to pick themselves up and improve after mistakes is self-compassion. “Ironically, kids who see ‘perfect parents’ aren’t being equipped with the skills they need to cope with their own imperfections. Children need caregivers who are appropriately vulnerable with their struggles and model self-compassion,” writes Tatera.
- Talk to your kids about how they deal with feelings. We all respond to difficult feelings in different ways. Some of us hide troublesome emotions, some of us fret about them, and some of us explode. Explicitly talking to your kids about the different ways people handle emotions when you’re all calm can help you start to show them how to get through tough situations in more constructive and compassionate ways. Tetara offers this fun quiz as a way to kick off the conversation.
If you’re an entrepreneur parent who’s intrigued and wants to learn more, check out Tetara’s article for more books and resources on the topic.
JAN 17, 2024The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
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