# How to raise children

Your primary job as a parent is to make children enjoyable enough to exist around others by the time they turn 4:

- Parents often fail that, and they have about 8 more years afterward before the child reaches [adolescence](parenting-3_teenagers.md) and disregards their parents' [influence](power-influence.md).
- About 75% of the time you will *ever* spend with your children will be before age 12.

The quality of a child's upbringing starts with the quality of their parent's love and extends outward to all their relationships:

- A child will act and grow relative to how much they feel safe and interpret that their parents love them.
- Children are poorly mimicking their parents' behavior (and *everything* else around them).
- Your child will model you constantly, even when you don't think they're watching you.
- They'll inherit your [habits](habits.md), character traits, beliefs, hypocrisies, [social norms](people-rules.md), and lifestyle.
- Children don't have any context except what they perceive, so you'll probably notice them performing many unacceptable things that are simply imitating *you*.
- Your ability to [change](people-changes.md) directly determines how well your children will grow.
- Even a child's *imaginary friends* teach them to socialize.

Your success as a parent comes from [your success in everything else](success-1_why.md):

- [Set reasonable goals](success-3_goals.md) and [stay productive](success-4_routine.md) toward [worthy purposes](success-1_why.md).
- Learn [self-awareness](awareness.md), [happiness](mind-feelings-happiness.md), [stress management](mind-feelings-happiness-stress.md), and [how to have fun](fun.md).
- [Sleep well](sleep.md), [manage your weight](body-2_diet.md), [learn to cook](cooking.md), and [take care of yourself](people-2_image.md).
- Understanding and practicing [empathy, compassion, and love](people-3_respect.md).
- Build [loving friendships](people-4_friends.md), [especially with your spouse](relationships-marriage.md).

However, a *child's* success goes far beyond simply their parents:

- As early as 5 and 6 years old, children take cues and input from the world around them as much as their parents.
- While you will have at least some control over all of it, the demographics and [social class](classes.md) of where your children grow up have an impact on who influences them.
- To give your child the best, scientifically proven demographic experience, try [homesteading](home-homestead.md).

Children will rarely thank their parents for their self-improvement until they've become adults themselves:

- In fact, self-improving parents will often disrupt what children expect, which will severely confuse them.
- Children will often misbehave around their parents' new [habits](habits.md) while trying to figure out the new consequences of their actions.

Each new child adds new dynamics to the family:

- When a child doesn't have siblings, they'll fail to learn how to [get along with others](people-rules.md) and [resolve disputes](people-5_conflicts.md) if their parents don't intentionally expose them to other children.
- A [married couple](relationships-marriage.md) can easily divide out roles, but it's far more complicated with 1, 2, 3, etc. children as they grow and take on more roles.
- With three or more children, parents' attention is often split so heavily that each child may not receive enough attention from their parents.

Because young children have limits with their [understanding](understanding.md), adjust how you [speak](language-speaking.md) with them:

1. State the idea you wish to express in the plainest and clearest possible terms (e.g., "It is dangerous to play in the street").
2. Phrase everything positively (e.g., "It is good to play where it is safe.").
3. Direct them to trustworthy authorities (e.g., "Ask your parents where it is safe to play.").
4. Eliminate all prescriptive, directive, or instructive elements (e.g., "Your parents will tell you where it is safe to play.").
5. Remove anything that suggests certainty (e.g., "Your parents can tell you where it is safe to play.").
6. When with other children that aren't your own, remove anything that may not apply to all children (e.g., "Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it's safe to play.").
7. Add a simple motivational idea that will give them a reason to follow your advice (e.g., "Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is good to listen to them").
8. Rephrase your new statement while repeating the first step (e.g., "Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them.").
9. Relate it to some phase of development a preschooler can understand ("Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them, and listening is an important part of growing.").

The best indicator of a healthy child is that they're playing:

- Children learn and find [meaning](meaning.md) through playing and [having fun](fun.md).
- If they have something they perceive as a problem, they will *not* play.
- In fact, without sufficient play, children often become *very* [mentally ill](mind-neurodivergence.md).

Beyond anything else, tend to [their needs](parenting-children-needs.md).

## Understand their motivations

Managing children is extremely challenging because they maintain a few paradoxes:

- They're hyper-aware of whatever they're focused on but oblivious to everything else.
- They see almost everything other people are doing (more than adults), but have no words to express what they're witnessing.
- They're technically smarter than adults, but have absolutely no life experience to filter their understanding or skills.
- They're extremely determined toward what they want, but are also easily frightened away from things or into telling lies.
- Children take concepts *very* literally (e.g., "put an animal to sleep") and [imagine](imagination.md) extreme ideas (e.g., an eye doctor's opthalmoscope might read their mind).
- They poorly execute their words and actions, but they're *constantly* changing.

If you understand how they think, it'll be easier to [take care of their needs](parenting-children-needs.md), [set boundaries with them](parenting-children-boundaries.md), and ultimately [have fun with them](parenting-children-fun.md)

From birth, children set goals by using their environment:

- They're observing patterns, then trying to gain from those patterns by taking them *completely* literally.
  - When they're very young (such as infancy), they're simply trying to define reality around them, but will start creating purposes to get what they want as early as 6 months.
  - They'll imitate what their target was *trying* to do, not just what their target did.
- Unlike [older children](parenting-3_teenagers.md) and adults, they value exploration *far* more than rewards, so they're constantly experimenting and testing.
- Usually, if you change the standards, they'll remember that it worked once that way and will experiment to see if the change was permanent.
  - Those enforcements are trying *anything* that might work and can include tantrums, screaming, complaining, and breaking things.
  - Contrary to what you may think, they have a *lot* of control over themselves, but aren't that clear about how their actions correspond to their [purposes](purpose.md).
- If at all possible, you'll save *tons* of pain by training them correctly from the beginning, but there's always hope until they reach adolescence.

Your child cares more about the approval and support of their guardians than *anything* else in the world:

- A child gains their sense of [identity](identity.md) strictly from how they imagine you see them.
- They're constantly asking three questions throughout their entire upbringing and onward into adulthood:
  1. "Dad, what do you [believe](understanding.md) about me?"
  2. "Dad, what do you [feel](mind-feelings.md) about me?"
  3. "Dad, what are your [hopes](imagination.md) for me?"
- A child is so hypersensitive to rejection that small amounts of inauthentic affection or neglect may scar them for life.
  - When you hug a child, never let go first.
- Imagine what your child sees, *not* how you [feel](mind-feelings.md) about it.
  - Even when their ideas are silly, those thoughts mean a lot to them, so never speak condescendingly or rudely.
- The tone you use with them will become their inner voice.
- If you're ever yelling, you're out of control, and teaching them that it's okay to be out of control as well.

The only way to build a healthy relationship with your child is to invest in them:

- Children only feel valued or loved to the extent you acknowledge their feelings and thoughts.
- Only spend time with them on things you both enjoy, since they'll detect when you're not enjoying time with them.
- If they don't like what you're doing with them, they'll feel like they're doing chores.
- You aren't raising children; you're raising people.
  - When they learn good habits early, they'll have an easier time when they get older.

Encourage them daily to work on good things they feel like doing, even when you're not around:

- Focus on teaching them self-control, *not* self-esteem (since they must earn that themselves).
- People find meaning through [responsibility](meaning.md), so they will feel valued proportionally to the responsibilities that you can safely give them.
- Describe with specific physical details what you see (e.g., "I see a clean room with all the toys organized and the bed made.").
- Describe the feelings tied to success (e.g., "It feels wonderful to walk into this room!").
- Sum up the child's accomplishments with one word (e.g., "You were really organized!")

Unless it's a matter of [morality](morality.md), never assert your desires over theirs:

- There are universal standards for goodness and decency, but most of life's decisions are open-ended experiences.
  - Even if their long-term goals won't make much money, anyone can [become an entrepreneur](entrepreneur-4_freelancing.md) or [work a day job](jobs-1_why.md) as they pursue [meaning](meaning.md).
- They'll try to imitate their parents' career roles, but sometimes only because it's familiar.
  - Often, they'll do *exactly* as you wish, even if they hate it.
  - Since [we often use words vaguely](language.md), discourage them from taking precise meanings of words too seriously.
- Pay close attention to what they do with their spare time and talk about, then encourage and empower them in that direction.

Be careful with what you give them, and on what terms:

- For the sake of exploration, children typically don't understand that things have the value you've given to the objects you give them.
- Explicitly indicate whether you're simply letting them use it or if they're free to do what they want with it.
- Most of the trouble comes from parents who give something, presuming their child will handle it carefully, and a [conflict](people-5_conflicts.md) erupting when the child does something they shouldn't have with it.

## Your romantic relationship affects parenting

Don't let [the child's needs](parenting-children-needs.md) eclipse the rest of your home:

- Keep your [marriage](relationships-marriage.md) a priority, since it affects how reliably you can be a parent.
  - Children are intimately aware of their parents' relationship, sometimes more than the parents.
  - Keep [date night](relationships-dating-ideas.md) a priority.
  - Kiss your spouse regularly in front of the children.
  - Continue affirming your love and gratitude.
- Make a date night co-op with three other sets of parents to babysit once a month and date night for the other three weeks.
- This is easy to do because adults don't usually feel and express their needs as urgently as children.
- If you prioritize them too much, they'll expect that you determine their [happiness](mind-feelings-happiness.md), which eventually becomes impossible.
- If you give children everything you have, they'll assume they can have everything of yours later.

A child needs *both* a mother and a father figure:

- While single parenting is possible with help from other people, one person can't replace the psychological needs a child has for both a father and mother.
- Children need a present, involved father.
  - Missing or inadequate father figures are the cause of many mental disorders.
  - Absentee fathers increase the chances of suicide, rape, running away from home, dropping out of school, and institutionalization.
- Children need a loving mother to teach self-love and compassion for others.
  - Uncaring or absent mothers inspire children to be critical and mean-spirited toward themselves and others.
- The nuclear family model has worked for thousands of years:
  - The father provides for a household financially with a [career](jobs-1_why.md).
  - The mother works to [maintain the home](home-housekeeping.md) and manage numerous details, including the children.
  - The more analytical spouse [manages the finances](money-1_why.md).
  - The parents have authority over the children, who possess miniature roles that imitate their same-sex parent until they move out.
  - LGBetc. marriages often give confusing guidelines for children about how to define male or female behavior, as well as how they should naturally interact.
  - Polyamorous relationships (e.g., 2 males and 1 female) can confuse the children about which of those father or mother figures to model.

A broken home will be severely devastating, but [a child can still recover from it](hardship-ptsd.md).

## Enjoy your family

You're never going to get parenting completely right:

- It's practically a guarantee that, in some capacity, you'll be [a bad parent](parenting-children-bad.md)
- The only way to be a perfect parent is to be a perfect role model, which is humanly impossible.
- Beyond a bare minimum set of specifications (feeding them, clothing them, etc.), most of a child's success is dictated by their [decisions](decisions.md), *not* the quality of their parenting.
- At the same time, the quality of your parenting *will* determine whether your adult child will be your [friend](people-4_friends.md) in adulthood, decades later.
- There's no set of standardized rules for parenting, and all parenting advice is subjective to the situation and [culture](people-culture.md).

Society vilifies relatively innocuous issues compared to what really matters:

- Media (music, video games, TV) are only issues in the realm of *[excess](addiction-substances.md)*, and it doesn't "destroy their innocence" if you give them context for it (either before *or* afterward).
- One abusive event doesn't scar a child *nearly* as much as permitting it to happen again or having a routine with it, and the worse problem is parents refusing to admit they failed.
- *Who* a child associates with isn't nearly as important as *what* they learn from those people.

Mind who you learn from:

- Raising children doesn't have any universal rules, only guidelines, but every parent has strong opinions.
- Listen to advice from stressed parents, but using it may create stress for yourself.
- Only learn from your extended family and friends if you like how their children have turned out.
- If you grew up in a dysfunctional home, try to find out what *to* do instead of what *not* to do.
- The advice from experienced parents, though, is sometimes life-changing.
- The best way to plan is to imagine your children's behaviors in various scenarios and how you'd respond.

Some components of parenting are always controversial:

- The scope of how much to discipline children (e.g., spanking, school choice) has swung back-and-forth with society's [trends](trends.md), and varies by world region and [religious belief](religion.md).
- 20th-century post-WWII Western values advocate preserving their innocence, but parents have historically given more responsibility to children and taught them that they were bad at decision-making.
- All of this expands outward into debate about [how to parent teenagers](parenting-3_teenagers.md), where the stakes are higher.

No matter how you've gotten your children, they are worth having:

- Even if you're suffering from [a divorce](hardship-family-divorce.md), your child can still recover from the hardship and make a better marriage in *their* future.
- If you become the parent of another family's child, you've given that person a second chance at [a meaningful life](meaning.md).

Healthy family members, beyond their relationships, transform communities:

- Positively changing a child's life dramatically changes the family's entire structure.
- They have better social skills from their biological family's training.
- A healthy family's nurturing, supportive environment fosters [success](success-1_why.md) and [happiness](mind-feelings-happiness.md).
- Great family rituals and customs infect other families that want to reproduce it.

Capture the memories as often as you can:

- Document the experiences frequently.
- Take photos of them before they grow to resent their siblings and parents.
- Put your child's graduation year on a large shirt, then take a photo of your child every year after completing a grade to see them grow into it.

Finally, once they've reached puberty, it's time to [start letting them go](parenting-3_teenagers.md).