Children extend our identities and so we bask in their accomplishments. The opposite is also true. There is a proverb that says: You are as happy as your unhappiest child.

Many of the stressors we encounter daily are triggered or exacerbated by what our children experience: social interactions, tests, sports and of course, their moods.

As parents, we set out with the goal to make our children’s world more stable, healthier and joyous. Somehow along the way we try too hard and get lost in multi-tasking.

When we feel stressed about our children’s conflicts and situations, they inhale that stress and sense their own negativity more intensely, fearing the problem to be far worse and more unmanageable than it is. Now, they have to deal with their parents’ stress in addition to their own.

While parents don’t have to prance around the house pretending all is well when it isn’t, parents should try to restore balance and redirect anxious energy toward problem solving. Too many of us only see a closed door… For example, if a child fails a test, then this failure could prompt a new opportunity to focus on the material that needs to be learned. Criticism can polish our mirrors.


Here are some suggestions to give your child a successful head start in a competitive, stressful world and as a result make you both happier:
 

• To help your child tune into his or her verbal intelligence read to your child and encourage reading; discuss the story with your child. Create your own book club at home or with other parents. Everyday prepare a new word of the day for your child to learn. Encourage your child to use it in conversation. Play word games. Match up opposites.
   
• To help your child become more logical and develop a mathematical intelligence play games like cards, dominoes and construct with building sets; do puzzles, get a science kit for simple do-at-home experiments and show your child a new world through a microscope for a different perspective.