Recently I've tried to determine just how ambitious my 8-year-old is.
Experts say children may or may not be naturally ambitious and if they're not, ambition can be acquired - it can be a cultivated skill that will last a lifetime.
After all, ambition is the energy that fuels the execution of our goals, or as one expert puts it: "It's the driving factor that separates those who do something with their lives, and the rest that choose to sit and watch life pass them by".
I certainly don't want life to pass my son by. True, he's only 8, but if ambition is a state of mind and a skill set then my job as a parent is to nurture it now. And through reading, research and talking with educators, I've managed to come up with a 5 key ways to nurture ambition in children.
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1. Encourage them to be all they can be.
2. Challenge them, and celebrate their success with them.
3. Expose them to new things, whether it's through traveling meeting new people or buying them a new book.
4. Encourage heroes. Experts say hero worship is a great way to focus ambition, because it will encourage them to find out how their heroes did what they did to be successful.
5. 5. Goal planning. By allowing your child to focus on a particular goal, whether it be home-work, or a special project, it will focus your child's attention and develop their concentration.
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