Denise D. Witmer - The Everything Parents Guide to Raising a Successful Child: All You Need to Encourage Your Child to Excel at Home and School

A S A PARENT, youre swamped with conflicting advice and parenting techniques that tell you what is best for your child. THE EVERYTHING PARENTS GUIDES get right to the point about specific issues. They give you the most recent, up-to-date information on parenting trends, behavior issues, and health concernsproviding you with a detailed resource to help you ease your parenting anxieties.

THE EVERYTHING PARENTS GUIDES are an extension of the bestselling Everything series in the parenting category. These family-friendly books are designed to be a one-stop guide for parents. If you want authoritative information on specific topics not fully covered in other books, THE EVERYTHING PARENTS GUIDES are the perfect resource to ensure that you raise a healthy, confident child.

Visit the entire Everything series at everything.com

Dear Reader,

It is my greatest hope that you will be able to find what you are looking for in The EverythingParents Guide to Raising a Successful Child. It has been a pleasure, and a learning experience, to write it for you.

When I first became a parent, it wasnt in the normal fashion. I accepted a position at a teen home and was asked to parent them. No problem, right? I cant begin to count all of the mistakes I made, even with all of the effective parenting courses I took. But then something happened. I experienced the miracle of birth and had my first daughter. The depth of love and wonder that I gained from having this child, and the two after her, gave me just what I needed to parent. I can now pick and choose from all of the expert advice available using my love for my children as a foundation.

Please use the love you have for your child, as the basis for picking and choosing what advice you will follow. With you in the drivers seat, with a trunk load of resources, and using love as the gas, your child will be a success and so will you.

RAISING A
SUCCESSFUL
CHILD

All you need to encourage your
child to excel at home and school

Denise D. Witmer

success The beauty and joy of raising a child to choose the best path for lifes ongoing journey, measured not by any standard means but by the realization of how far he or she has come.

To my husband, daughters, parents, and the parents before them

Y OUR CHILD IS NOT A LUMP OF CLAY that needs to be molded. He already has a shape and form. He comes with potential. He has natural abilities. Your job as a parent is more like polishing a golden statue. You have to use a soft cloth and the right type of polish in order for his abilities to shine through.

You also are a golden statue. You have potential. You came into parenting with abilities. Youll be polishing parts of your identity as you raise your child. By parenting, you are growing and developing into a new person. Keep this mind when you choose between a piece of sandpaper and a soft cloth. As a family, you all grow together. If you become stagnant as a parent, your child will not be able to grow to his full potential. But, if you are willing to learn new ways of parenting and to apply them, both you and your child will shine. Does that mean everything you try will work? No, not everything, possibly even most things may not work. Because your family is unique, youll need to test things out, and you will still make mistakes even though you have followed the best parenting advice from the experts.

However, you are not destined to repeat the mistakes of your parents. You are destined to make your own. Isnt that wonderful? When you accepted the job of being a parent, you had no experience and knew you were bound to make mistakes. You may not have wanted to look at it that way, but the mistakes did happen. So, you started the search for information. You did this because you have parenting abilities. You have the potential to parent your child successfully. You just need that ever-elusive parenting manual that everyone tells you doesnt exist. Well, it does. It exists in your heart and mind. It may take a library full of parenting books, magazines, and Web sites for you to discover all of the instructionsand you will need to go back to learn more oftenbut your parenting manual is available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Most parents agree that they want their child to be something. They want him to be happy, smart, respectful, honest, responsible, and more. Most children have the ability to be just what their parents want them to be. Now the trick lies in looking up what you want your child to be in your parenting manual, reading what type of cloth and polish youll need to use, and then use it correctly. But if you rub one area too hard, youll smudge another. For instance, if you push your child too hard to be smart, he may cheat and tarnish his honesty. All of the parenting resources, cloths, and polish will not help your child become what you want him to be if your parenting manual does not include notes on his individual abilities, strengths, and weaknesses.

Learn first what your child needs and what his abilities are. Then use the strength of the love you feel for him to guide him toward his goal. Use your potential to learn what youll need to get him there. Fill in your parenting manual by developing the unique skills and tools youll need to give him the attributes of success.

S UCCESSFUL CHILDREN COME from all walks of life. Every background, culture, financial status, or religion produces successful children. Yours can be one of them. You already have the tools you need to help your child be successful you just need to know how best to use them.

The definition of a successful child is your child. Everything about the child you have brought into this world defines some degree of success. Even a child who faces a major life crisis is capable of making a success out of his life. Maya Angelou did not have an easy childhood. Read her autobiographical book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Yet, she went on to become a famous writer, poet, speaker, civil-rights activist, and a phenomenal woman.

Success is relative; every life has its ups and downs. Your child will continue to have small and large successes throughout her life. It is natural to want to do everything you can to help ensure that she has the best chances at success as she grows up.