Sit down and just say ‘How were things for you when you were a kid? What did you have to do around the house? What did your mom do versus your dad?’ ... just to kind of have a very open conversation about how things were for you and what you liked and what you didn’t like ... and what your expectations are about raising your own children ...
You can make a list.
What kind of values would you like to instill in your kids?
So you might say, ‘Well I really want my child to have good frustration tolerance. I know so many adults that can’t deal with getting frustrated. They give up too easily and I want my kid to be able to get into the work force when they’re adult and really have perseverance, really have discipline’, and the other person in the family might say, ‘I really want my child to understand the idea of generosity. I want them to know how to give’.
And so from there you can start to build the foundation of ‘Well, what will we have to do as parents in our home to build those kinds of qualities and traits and characteristics?’.
Alexandra Barzvi, Ph.D.
NYU Child Study Center
Psychologist, Author, International Speaker
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