Vishen Lakhiani argues parents' most important job is protecting their child's beliefs. He cites psychologist Shelley Lefkoe, saying kids rapidly create meaning from what happens to them, so parents should teach that failures don't define them, gratitude matters, and beliefs shape health.
If you could go back 15 years ago, what advice would you give yourself before your first child that you know now?
Two parts. The first part comes from the psychologist Shelley Lefkoe. She founded the Lefkoe Method, which is a belief system training. And one of the things Shelly explained to me is that the most important thing a parent can do for their child is to protect the child's beliefs. Make sure your child understand that their beliefs heal their body. Ensure your child understands that gratitude and appreciation will actually cause more good things to come to their life. Make their child understand that getting an F is meaningless. Make your child understand that compassion is an important quality. Protect the child's belief. Never install in your child a bad belief in any circumstance. I ask myself, what will this tell my children about the world? Kids have a meaning making machine. They rapidly create meaning.
Even if you don't tell them, they're going to make sense of it somehow.
Exactly. So that's the first and the second thing is let your children know you love them. Like it's so important. Like they must feel love from you. If they feel love from you, they're more likely to give love to themselves. But so often as parents we don't do that. It's so hard, especially for men. So many men are not trained to say I love you. I tell that to my son and it makes him a little bit uncomfortable. You know, guys get uncomfortable. My son is 15, but I tell him hayden, I love you when I missed his birthday because I was on this book tour and I left him a beautiful three minute message just talking about how much I loved him, explaining why I had to do this book tour, explaining that he is the most important thing in my life along with his sister and re emphasizing I love you. And children need to hear that. Protect your kids beliefs and ensure that they know without a doubt that you love them.
