Nikki Steele Osborne, mental health advocate and creator of the incredible course Stepping Into Parenthood shares her expertise on how to positively impact your child’s life and nurture their Hopes & Dreams. 

We all have Hopes and Dreams and none more so than when we become parents! Hopes and Dreams that we will be the best parents we possibly can. Hopes and Dreams that our children will grow up feeling happy and fulfilled. Hopes and Dreams that they will grow up to realise their own Hopes and Dreams! So how can we help them to do just that? It all starts with us!

Have you ever heard the sentence “put on your oxygen mask first’? You will hear this on an aircraft during their safety talk. It means we can only look after others if we have looked after ourselves first. By looking after ourselves properly we can then look after our children in the way we want to.

Of course, we are human and have times when we feel challenged by the world of parenting, however by raising our awareness to best ways to navigate those times we can teach our children emotional intelligence and practical skills that can prepare them to look after themselves as they grow up.

Involving your children in decision making and contribution can start by sitting together as a family to create meal plans, housework schedules and planning of weekly activities.

For all age groups, they will follow your lead. Do not tell them how to create good habits......show them!

These are the habits that will pave the way for achieving all their Hopes and Dreams!

The basis for everything is to understand and meet the Six Human Needs which are:

1. Certainty: Assurance you can avoid pain and gain pleasure.
2. Variety: The need for the unknown/ change/ stimuli.
3. Significance: Feeling unique, important, special, or needed.
4. Connection and Love: A strong feeling of closeness or union with someone or something.
5. Growth: An expansion of capacity, capability or understanding.
6. Contribution: A sense of service and focus on helping, giving to, and supporting others.

Understanding and most importantly implementing ways in which to meet these needs will help create the foundations to living a happier, more fulfilled life for you and your children.

The reality is that to achieve our Hopes and Dreams we must take action! We often look at successful people and think “oh they are so lucky!” However, if you explore further, you will discover a series of actions that have been taken to achieve their success.

These actions need not be large, dramatic actions but can begin with a series of small actions that when taken together can create clarity, organisation and a better sense of wellbeing which is how we achieve our Hopes and Dreams.

Here are a few examples to get you started:

Create flexible routines: I say flexible because they are not written in stone, however providing a routine for your children helps to meet their need for certainty....and yours!

Healthy eating: Creating a weekly meal plan can help remove the overwhelm of trying to figure out what to eat every day! It reduces the temptation to order take away food and assists in budgeting as less waste occurs and of course fuels our bodies with the good stuff!

Move your body: I appreciate it can be hard when you have little ones at home, explore starting your day with a low impact seven-minute workout, it is a great way to invite clarity and focus into your day.

Get outside: Put down the phone and get outside, raise awareness to the sounds, sights, and smells for that connection to nature.

Write: Writing down thoughts, hopes and dreams is cathartic and gives the opportunity to create strategies as to how to achieve them. It is beneficial in creating clarity when our brains become so busy with day-to-day life!

Talk! Open narratives with family and friends surrounding expectations, values, planning, ensure everyone is meeting their own needs. If you are happy and working towards your own goals then your children will learn from your behaviour.