Being a parent can be challenging at times, but it is also an extremely rewarding experience.
On most days, you find yourself struggling to strike a balance between giving your children a great childhood and doing all that you can to help them grow into happy and confident individuals.
For most of us, one of the highlights of our growing up years is the gifts we receive on special days and occasions. While the excitement of receiving these material gifts peaks at the point of unwrapping them, the novelty of having them in our lives quickly dissipates as soon as we move on to the next big thing.
On the other hand, there are gifts that come in the form of values, experiences and traditions that tend to stick with us for the rest of our lives.
If you are looking to give gifts that your children will never forget during the holiday season, here’s a list to get you started.
Gifts Your Children Will Never Forget
1. Affirmation
You’ll be surprised to discover how simple words of affirmation is all it takes to change things for the better. So do make it a point to tell your children how much you love and appreciate them – and do it as often as you can in your everyday life.
2. Boundaries
Although you’d want to give your children the freedom to grow and explore, having some boundaries help to keep things moving and in place. With clear expectations and a sense of certainty in place, this enables you to be consistent in guiding and nurturing your children while they focus on attaining the goals that they would like to achieve.
3. Compassion
Throughout their lives, your children will need to learn to work and live with others and one of the things that will help them get there is to have compassion for others. This involves the ability to see things from the perspective of others and to be bold to take a stand to do the right thing in various situations.
4. Confidence
One of the values that we, as parents, would want to nurture in our children is for them to grow up to be confident. When your children are confident, they will become more focused and productive rather than allow worry and self-destructive thoughts and actions to take over them.
5. Contentment
Don’t we all wish we had more in life or become better than the people around us? This is where living with the value “less is more” comes in handy! One of the greatest gifts you can give your children is the ability to appreciate their blessings in life and be proud of who they are and the person that they hope to become.
6. Curiosity
Children love to wonder and ask questions for it is through this that they learn how things around them work. Encourage your children to keep this up even as they are all grown up as it is only through this that they learn and keep up with what’s happening around them and the world.
7. Discipline
Children need to be guided towards the right path and this includes learning everything from the basics. This includes what constitutes appropriate behaviour, how to get along with others, what it takes to get the results that they hope for and how to achieve their goals and dreams.
Your young ones need to realise that every action that they take comes with consequences which can turn out either positive or negative and that they need to be accountable for everything that they do.
8. Encouragement
Never underestimate the power of words, no matter how simple they appear to be. They can either make or break your children – so choose to speak words that offer encouragement and positive thoughts as much as possible.
9. Faithfulness and Friendship
In order to lead a happy and fulfilling life, your children need to learn how to have healthy relationships with the people in their lives. This starts with the bond that you share with them as parents and the relationship that you share with your spouse that is fuelled with love.
You might not realise this but our young ones truly take in the tiniest details on how we react and treat the people around us in our everyday life.
10. Gratitude
We want to fill our children’s lives with positivity and a genuine appreciation for the things and people around them. And that starts with instilling the value of gratitude in them from the earliest age and an understanding that good deeds are ones that are done without expecting anything in return.
11. Honesty and Integrity
When children learn the value and importance of honesty from young, they are more likely to grow up with this honesty at the core of everything thing that they do. When we are honest in our everyday interaction with others, we tend to feel better about ourselves and live each day on a happier note too.
12. Hope
Hope is fuelled in knowing and believing that things will get better, even as the going gets tough. This gives your children the strength, endurance and resolve to face whatever that may come their way and to focus on pressing forward.
13. Hugs and Kisses (lots of them!)
Who doesn’t love starting and ending the day with some good old loving affection?
Know that there is no such thing as being too old for hugs and kisses, so do grab every opportunity to show your affection to your children at all of their stages of life.
14. Identity
As your children grow up, their identity will be the result of their past experiences and relationships that we’ve helped them shape thus far. Thus, it is only fitting that we do all we can to lead them in living life with confidence and positivity without barriers. This will also help to avoid the need to deal with an identity crisis later on in life.
15. Imagination
Life is ever-changing – and it does so at speeds that even we can’t keep up. To help your children to embrace the changes that will come their way, do encourage them to keep their imagination alive and be bold to think out of the box. Those who dare to think and dream big are ones that are not merely living life as it is, but they are also creating the journey ahead that is set to unfold.
16. Lifelong Learning
Having the desire to keep on learning is different from learning just for the sake of school or teachers. So do inculcate this value at home from the earliest years. Read to your children, ask them questions that will set them thinking, analyse the things around you and expose them to new experiences and ideas. In short, create a culture of learning right and make it a natural part of life.
17. Never Give Up
It is said that one who gives up easily is he who have missed all the opportunities to make him a better person in life. So as you instil determination in your children, empahsise the fact that quitting and giving up will not get them any nearer towards the goals and dreams that they’ve set for themselves in life.
After all, we will never truly know what success and fulfilment feel and looks like if we choose to take the easy way out when things get tough.
18. Optimism
Because anticipating all the bad things that could have happened is exhausting and does little to change the world. Instead, being optimistic opens the door to a world of opportunities and possibilities.
19. Room to Make Mistakes
Kids will be kids only once in their lifetime and that is what makes childhood so fun and exciting. So give your children room to explore, experiment, make mistakes and learn from them as they pick themselves up and emerge stronger and wiser than before!
20. A Place to Call Home
Home is always the one place that your child knows he/she can come home to and it is one filled with lovely memories of his/her growing up years. So go ahead and do all you can to fill your home with happy moments that he/she will remember for the rest of his/her life.
What other “gifts” can you give your children that will stick with them for their lives?