During a child's development, parents and caregivers can foster a high achievement drive, which ultimately leads to future success and happiness.
Why Ingraining Achievement Drive in Your Children is Important
What is achievement drive?
We know not everyone has a high achievement drive. As parents and caregivers, our goal is to prepare our children for success in life. Considering the correlation between success and achievement drive, we must develop these skills in our children. According to Wikipedia,
Here are a few of the foundations of high achievement drive:The need for achievement (N-Ach) refers to an individual's desire for significant accomplishment, mastering of skills, control, or high standards. It’s a personality trait connected to setting and meeting high standards of achievement.
- Parents/caregivers who encourage independence in childhood
- Praise and rewards for success
- Association of achievement with positive feelings
- Association of achievement with one's competence and effort, not luck
- A desire to be effective or challenged
Fostering a high achievement drive in children.
In a recent blog, we examined How Your Achievement Drive Influences Your Success. Since then, we have had several inquiries from parents asking how they can raise children with a high achievement drive.Most parents want the best for their children and provide them with what they did and didn't have in their childhood. The challenge is that if we do too much for our children, they will never develop self-regulating skills. If we provide constant praise and rewards for showing up but not succeeding (something common today), we give a false understanding of success.
Suggestions to enhance achievement drive in child.
Here are a few recommendations for enhancing achievement drive early in children. Parents who practice these suggestions and model emotional intelligence skills and strategies will further allow children to live a fulfilled and successful life.
- Prepare them to begin demonstrating independence between the ages of six and eight.
- Encourage them to make choices as early if not before toddlerhood.
- Inspire them to take care of themselves and their personal space around the house.
- Provide the opportunity to familiarize themselves with their personal surrounding, like their neighbourhood.
Parents and caregivers, avoid these mistakes!
There's a fine line between expecting too much, too early or too little, too late from children. We don't want to stifle the development of a child's personality. Nor do we wish to over-protect or over-discipline children, as this may make them very dependent on their parents, finding it challenging to separate and make their own decisions.
Did you learn a lot from this article? Here are three more on children's development to read next:
- Building Children's Emotional Intelligence Makes the World a Better Place
- The Importance of Raising Emotionally Intelligent Children
- How To Be The Emotional Coach Your Child Needs To Succeed
I encourage parents and caregivers to observe the child's behaviour to understand their abilities. Challenge them and support their development to impact their achievement drive. These suggestions will lead to higher emotional intelligence and success.
This article was originally published on August 5, 2017, and has been updated (June 2023).
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