from Parenting Expert Neelam Sethi
As parents, we all want to give our the children support and motivation they need to envision and build a successful future for themselves. But even the best parents need a little help to figure out how to inspire and motivate their children sometimes. Which is exactly where Neelam Sethi comes in.
Neelam Sethi was born in India and has always felt fascinated by children. From the time she was young she knew she wanted a large family that she could put her “heart and soul” into raising. When it came to raising her own children, she followed her instincts and her heart. Without any training or parenting guides, she was raised four remarkably successful children — including the New York Times best selling author Ramit Sethi, founder of the Masala Body health and fitness program, Nagina Sethi Abdullah, Maneesh Sethi founder of the Pavlok self-shocking, behavior change device and Dr. Rachita Sethi Reddy, nephrologist and founder of Reddy4HealthyBalance.com. By anyone’s standards her offspring are more motivated and entrepreneurial than your average brood. Neelam is now a parenting expert who has been featured in the New York Times, Huffington Post and So Money podcast for her advice on how to raise creative, engaged and motivated children.
Neelam has learned a lot from her own children and shared few of her most effective insights to help other parents learn how to inspire entrepreneurship and creative thinking in their kids.
1. Encourage goal-oriented thinking and engage in conversations about the future. Neelam tells parents to actively engage in conversation with their kids about the future. She told me that when she talked to her own children, most converastions began with “when you go to junior high” or “when you go to high school” or “when you go to college”. By doing this she showed her children that you only get a few years to take advantage of the opportunities at each of these stages in life, so make the most of your time at each point and remember that life is give and take.
2. Teach your kids how to negotiation. In India when Neelam was young, everything was negotiable. She and her husband brought this mentality to the United States with them and shared it with their children. She taught then to always ask for what they wanted and that there was no harm in being told “no”.
3. Make the most of natural talents. Neelam worked hard to understand her children’s natural strengths and interests. Then she helped them learn how to use these skills to excel in their lives. Ultimately this helped her teach her children that they can make and do things outside of the norm, and helped spark their entrepreneurial spirit.
4. Focus on specifics. Neelam didn’t just asking her kids “how was your day?” when they got home from school. Neelam encouraged an open dialogue by asking specifics, like “what game did you play at recess?” and “who did you sit with at lunch today?” Another tactic she used in her own home was to give each child a title for the day. These titles — such as kitchen coordinator or table setter — helped them find excitement, satisfaction and purpose in otherwise mundane chores.
5. Incorporate positivity. Neelam worked meditation and gratefulness into her children’s daily routines. This helped them learn to avoid negativity so they wouldn’t let something bad ruin the rest of their day. For even just 2 minutes a day, try spending time asking your children “what are you thankful for today?” This can make a child more thankful, empathetic and less greedy than they might otherwise be.
To learn more, check out the full podcast interview on Financial Fluency here Raise Top Kids with Neelam Sethi!
Originally published at www.huffingtonpost.com on February 14, 2017.
Originally published at medium.com