Parents want to raise confident, well adjusted children that create a good life, love God and do good things. But if we aren’t careful,  there are things we can do to prevent this process from happening.

First and foremost, stop reinforcing a victim mentality. Constantly telling your children they can’t, or you can’t do things because of other people or circumstances leads to thinking like a victim. We have choices in life. Help them make decisions about how to respond to circumstances and life challenges. For example, a child can be rejected for a school play and blame the teacher, other parents or class privilege; or we can tell our kids to learn from the rejection and audition again in the future. Go to the teacher and get feedback on why he or she wasn’t selected and then work on getting better. The child can control his or her reaction by focusing on self-improvement and resiliency vs. victimization.

Second, stop protecting your child from feeling bad. Parents who do this create children who can’t tolerate distress and have a lot of problems coping. Your child will be turned down, rejected, and disappointed in life. Help them deal with those negative feelings, tolerate them and then rise above them. When they are sad, let them feel sad. When they are angry, help them regulate that anger. Do not try to cheer them up or distract them. Help them identify the negative emotion, feel it, release it and move on. This builds emotional intelligence as well as resiliency.

Third, stop trying to make everything a win! Let them fail and make mistakes. Yes, it is hard to watch your child not make the team, get rejected by a peer or not study for a test and get a bad grade. But let the natural consequences of mistakes and failure take over. Kids have to learn to bounce back from mistakes and failures. It’s part of life as they will not achieve everything they want or do everything perfectly. Parents who protect them from their mistakes do them no favors. In fact, you reinforce a feeling of being entitled. Forgot to study? You get a bad grade, Unprepared for practice? You sit on the bench. These are life lessons that build mental strength. Don’t take that away from your child.

Fourth, don’t let them avoid responsibility. I’ve heard parents say, “My child is so stressed so I don’t require her to do anything around the house.” Big mistake. Give them responsibility to build mastery and confidence. Responsibility teaches children to work towards a goal- a skill they will need in the workforce.Responsibility also builds competence. Children see they can push themselves and get things done. So don’t remove all stress. Help them learn to manage it at an early age.