It is the dream of most parents to help their children have strong self esteem. You can educate your children at the best schools in the country, help your children get into the best colleges and know this is a necessary part of creating a well rounded individual. This is classroom learning. The second ingredient to success is real life learning. It is taught at home.

If you only look at your child’s ability to achieve at the scholastic or classroom level, then you rob them of what it truly takes to succeed in life. In the real world there are two types of learning, unconscious and conscious. It is what is unconsciously learned that can sabotage the brightest child’s creativity, ideas and future.

What truly enables a child to utilize opportunities is the ability to think in ways that see the opportunity so that your child can seize the opportunity. This has been called possibility thinking. It trains the brain to look for possibilities vs. limitations.

Parents who want to raise children with a high degree of self esteem must help ensure that their child can utilize and see advantages or possibilities in all situations. Most importantly though, is how you as a parent train your child to think and speak. This will be the largest contributor to your child’s success. As a child, there is an unconscious learning process that takes place by observing others, called (modeling). It is when your child watches what you, as a parent, do and models the behavior your parenting exhibits.

How you model your personal behavior in situations both stressful and non-stressful is how children learn to deal with the world. In a stressful situation if you personally are a quitter, I do not care how smart your child is, they will also learn a pattern of quitting by observing you model quitting. If you have no drive for life or want for a better life, then your children will follow and learn your attitude. If you model fear and terror during a crisis, your children unconsciously learn how to have the same toxic thinking pattern you do. Children learn limited negative or possibility driven thinking from you and what you do in the real world.

If you unconsciously seek validation from others, your child will learn that validation from outside yourself is a must have and then go seek it from their peers. If you model self command to them, then they too will learn self command. As a parent, you are the class room of life. Children learn your thinking style and habits. As a parent, it matters what behavior you model to them every day. In the real world you must model true, authentic self esteem, not a false sense of self esteem if you want your children to learn it.

Here are 5 steps to modeling successful behaviors to your children:

1. Stop modeling the continued daily usage of negative limited thinking.

Even in the smallest amounts limited thinking destroys your child’s aspirations before they even begin. Not understanding what limited thinking really is can allow you to use it all the time without you knowing it.

2. Create self awareness.

Monitor what it is that you are telling yourself. You model for your children what attributes you would like them to inherit and learn. If you want them to be all they can be, then you need to become all you can become. You can not expect from them what you do not expect from yourself.

3. Examine your thinking and speaking habits.

There are six deadly accepted limited thinking and speaking habits that can sabotage your success and your child’s success. You must learn what they are and avoid using anyone of them, this will help ensure your child’s future success habits.

4. Stop believing that you are your thinking.

You are not what you think. Thinking is a tool not who you are. You must learn to use thinking properly. You experience what you think. There is a big difference here. When you understand this principal you will tap into the most powerful knowledge and skill you can have, which is the science of results oriented thinking. This is the understanding that things show up in your life because you are creating the thinking, actions and circumstances that produce them.

5. Learn and model self-command.

Self-command is the ability to take action in a direction and maintain a powerful level of excitement, action, drive and focus to complete a task. It teaches a child strong leadership skills.

As a parent remember to give them not just class room learning but real life learning too. Model for them what it is that you would want them to do in situations and they will learn it from you. If you have true self-esteem your children will model that and have it too. Give your child the best thinking tools and self command and they will conceive and achieve anything.