by Janet Kellogg
Genius Parenting Move #4 is where the rubber meets the road on your parenting journey. We all want our kids to “dream big,” “set the world on fire,” feel “#blessed” . . . right? Those Pin-worthy quotes were born out of an unrelenting desire inside each and every one of us to discover our purpose and be the best we can be. This desire transcends age, race, and creed to become the ultimate reason we each try to do something important with our lives. That’s why Genius Parenting Move #4 means your highest priority and ultimate focus must be on developing your child’s inner strengths.
Genius parenting uses the blueprint of inner design to build a solid foundation
All the trendy one-size-fits-all parenting advice in the world cannot help you if it’s fashioned without the insight and influence of your child’s inner design. Put plainly, without the understanding of inner design and the inner strengths they possess naturally, you are trying to parent and develop the world’s most sophisticated system (a human being) without ANY operating manual. No thanks!
You may be thinking about the appropriateness of parenting your child according to a design they share with others. How can that possibly address the unique needs of your child when you know there’s only ONE of them in the whole world and there will only ever be one? Great question!
Discovering inner design is simply discovering the similarities that exist among all of us in our basic drives. This discovery will tell us so much about our given strengths and our makeup that we can’t afford not to know. We may share drives and preferences and innate strengths with others, but the way we each express these strengths is undeniably unique. Why not eliminate the guesswork of what’s driving your child to think, feel and act they way they do and get on with helping them learn how to express that design in a way only they can express? When you do this, in effect, you’ll be helping them to change the world they live in, one day at a time, just by being the fullness of who they really are?
Fill your genius parenting day with 5 simple tasks
Enjoy watching your kiddos use their strengths as you praise their efforts and show them ways to be more successful. Instead of discussion about bad behavior and disciplinary measures, recuperate lost time and talk about their good behavior.
A Positive Pattern for Genius Parents
- Identify your child’s strengths.
Help Me Identify My Child’s Inner Design - Genuinely accept and respect all their positive attempts to live in their strengths. Don’t ignore their healthy efforts. If you do, they’ll disconnect from you and question why they seem not to be able to impress you.
- Grant them freedom to be who they are created to be. We’ve created a fun and FREE graphic that is a great reminder of your amazing child’s list of inner strengths. Get your copy and keep it handy to remind you and everyone of just how amazing your child is.
(Some parents post them on their refrigerator; others have framed them and placed them in their offices, home office desks, mantle, etc.) - Positively reinforce their successes in displaying their strengths.
- Model your own strengths, not your weaknesses. You can’t teach your child what you don’t know for yourself.
In this positive parenting pattern, you can track your child’s progress, or lack of it, and focus on training them to be who they were meant to be. Knowing their strengths and observing their fulfillment, you will find confidence and confirmation that your parenting path is the right one. You will not be using a one-size-fits-all method of parenting, but one designed for each child’s uniqueness.
So skip the “bootcamps”, “handbooks for dummies”, or “tips and tricks.” You’ll need none of that if your goal is following your child’s inner design as a guide for correcting, motivating and training them up the way they should go.
When kids are engaged in using their strengths constructively, there’s little time for negative behavior. That’s an advantage almost too obvious to mention. It’s the skill of training them to use and develop their strengths according to how they’ve been made that can be one of your greatest gifts to your kids.
Make your moves today and parent like a genius
Genius Parenting Move #1: Understand inner design. Study how it shapes perceptions, motivations and decisions. Learn more here.
Genius Parenting Move #2: Focus on the beliefs that drive your child’s behavior and you’ll inspire the behavior you are looking for. Learn more here.
Genius Parenting Move #3: Build up your child’s healthy self-image so that their choices are healthy, positive and propelling them toward a sense of fulfillment and purpose. Learn more here.
Genius Parenting Move #4: Treat the development of your child’s strengths as your first priority and avoid the mistake of confusing good habits learned from others with the innate strengths of your own child.
Lean into Genius Parenting
Learn more about parenting according to your child’s design, with this new self-paced online learning.