{"id":19736,"date":"2013-09-29T19:59:13","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T03:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/?p=19736"},"modified":"2013-09-29T19:59:13","modified_gmt":"2013-09-30T03:59:13","slug":"raise-kids-become-great-adults","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/raise-kids-become-great-adults\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Raise Kids Who Become Great Adults"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

<\/p>\n

When you ask parents of any background what they want, you will overwhelmingly get this response:<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to raise great kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curiously, that is not what most parents actually want. What they actually want is to raise great kids\u2026who become great adults.<\/p>\n

Think about it\u2014how many great kids have you seen go totally crazy the second they leave home for college or adult life? It happens all the time. Why? Because their parents gave little thought to the people those great kids would become once they left the house.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day challenges of raising children that we often lose sight of the big picture of who those children are becoming.<\/p>\n

However, a few months ago, I had a conversation with my son, Austin, who was 13 at the time, that made me realize just how straightforward helping a child transition into adulthood can be.<\/p>\n

Parenting with the Results in Mind<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOK, buddy,\u201d I said as I pulled out a sheet of paper, \u201cwhat exactly do you want your life to look like at age 25? Let\u2019s make a list.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can imagine the stare I got back. \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d I responded, \u201cdo you ever think about what you\u2019re going to do when you\u2019re older?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, then. Let\u2019s write it down. Instead of just waiting and seeing what happens, let\u2019s you and me write down exactly what it is that you want to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the next 10 minutes, I heard things that amazed me\u2014things that Austin had never told me before that I probably wouldn\u2019t have found out without asking.<\/p>\n

For example, the very first result we wrote was where he wanted to live.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you want to live in the city, the country, the suburbs\u2026?\u201d I asked him.<\/p>\n

The quickness with which he answered surprised me. \u201cI want to live on the lagoon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

I had never heard this before. The lagoon is a body of salt water not too far from where we live in Orange Beach, Alabama. It\u2019s a great fishing spot\u2014shallow water with deep holes, and it feels tropical.<\/p>\n

So we wrote down the lagoon. Next, we described the type of house in which he wanted to live, whether he wanted to have graduated from college, and what he wanted an average day to be like. As the list began to fill out, he started to get excited. After all, when you take the time to sit down and actually plan out your ideal life, it can look pretty great!<\/p>\n

When we were done, I said, \u201cBuddy, this is a great list. I would be excited for you to have this life at age 25.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMe too,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n

I looked him in the eye and said, \u201cDo you want me to help you get there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

With that agreement, I made a copy of the list for myself. Since then, we have referred back to it many times. Some of it, of course, has changed. The future a teenager wants for himself is never set in stone, after all. But one thing has not changed\u2014the desired results remain great, and those results remain at the forefront of my son\u2019s and my own thinking.<\/p>\n

He understands that I want the best for him, and that I am there to coach him toward those results\u2014not because I\u2019m smarter, but because I\u2019m older, have made mistakes he can avoid, and have simply been through more. Just as a coach and a quarterback sit down and list the results they want to achieve in an upcoming season, my son and I have listed out results we want to achieve as he becomes a man.<\/p>\n

Knowing that the quality of our answers depends on the quality of our questions, let\u2019s ask some good ones of ourselves right now:<\/p>\n

Do you want the best for your children?
\nWhat specifically does \u201cthe best\u201d look like?
\nWhat specific actions can you take to get your children from where they are right now to \u201cthe best\u201d?<\/p>\n

Though most of us will often avoid thinking about it, there will come a time when our influence over the paths of our children\u2019s lives wanes. We will not see them every day. We probably will not talk to them every day. The amount of say we have in their decisions will reduce dramatically. They will reap the results of the seeds they have sown.<\/p>\n

But what if those seeds could be planted right here, right now? What if you could be there to dig the dirt, till the soil, and nurture the early stages of growth?<\/p>\n

You can. Welcome to parenting with the results in mind.<\/p>\n

——–<\/p>\n

Andy Andrews is the New York Times best-selling author of The Noticer Returns<\/a>, a story that illuminates the timeless wisdom of principled parenting. Visit TheNoticerReturns.com<\/a> to read the first chapter now.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI want to raise great kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curiously, that is not what most parents actually want. What they actually want is to raise great kids\u2026who become great adults. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12163,"featured_media":19738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[58,112,6],"tags":[3311,4653,3310,4631,66,4651,4629],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Raise Kids Who Become Great Adults - Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cI want to raise great kids.\u201d Curiously, that is not what most parents actually want. 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