Aside from being healthy and happy, it is also every parent’s wish for their son to grow up to be a good man. It is a thing of pride to produce an upstanding citizen of society that everyone can look up to. Fortunately, you have a significant influence on how your son turns out to be.
Teaching your son to be a good man includes being a gentleman, being respectful, being honest, taking responsibility, and pursuing his passions. He must grow up unafraid to ask for help or show his vulnerable side. Lastly, he must stand for what he believes in, lead by example, and even have a firm handshake.
This article will list down several rules to teach your son to guide him towards the path of being a good man when he grows up.
Rules to Teach Your Son to Raise a Good Man
1. Be a Gentleman
Perhaps one of the most important rules to teach your son is to be a gentleman. Despite being an important rule, this is actually more of an umbrella rule as several other rules would then fall under this. As you might understand, it takes quite a bit for a man to be considered a gentleman.
Raising your son to be a gentleman means teaching him a lot of little rules. These little rules include holding the door for someone, standing up when a woman leaves or joins a table, and walking on the street side of the sidewalk.
Early on, your son might ask you what all these rules are for. One important aspect to teach your son is how being a gentleman matters – how it is worth the effort. Growing up to be a gentleman will teach him how to be respectful, as well as garner respect from the people around him as well.
It will take some time to ingrain all these little rules into your son which is why it is highly recommended to start as early as possible. With enough of these little rules, your son will have no trouble growing up to be a fine gentleman.
2. Have a Firm Handshake
Your son is your pride and joy. Not only do you want him to go out and succeed in the world, but you also want people to look up to him when he grows up. Although it may not be at the top of the list, one of the best rules to teach your son early is to have a firm handshake.
A handshake is an important part of meeting new people. Aside from how your son looks, the handshake is one of the things that sets people’s first impression of him.
According to a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, there is a correlation between the characteristics of a handshake and first impressions. It was found that men who had a firm handshake made more favorable impressions compared to men with weaker handshakes.
It was also found that men considered to have firm handshakes were perceived to be more extroverted and open to experience while being less neurotic and shy.
As you teach your son this rule, do not forget to remind him that a good handshake must be accompanied by eye contact.
3. Be Respectful
Although it may be considered to be under being a gentleman as well, teaching your son to be respectful is so important that it deserves to be a rule of its own.
Being respectful is one of the most important lessons everyone has to learn. It is also one of the traits that people often associate back to the parents. For example, if people encountered a disrespectful person, they would wonder how their parents raised them to end up like that.
Being respectful means a lot of things. It means speaking with politeness, such as using “please” and “thank you.” It also means addressing people appropriately. Your son can begin addressing people correctly by calling their teachers “Mr.,” “Ms.,” or “Mrs.”
Being respectful also includes how they conduct themselves around other people. For example, respecting the boundaries of their friends is a way for them to be respectful. It could even be the way they dress. Being respectful means dressing up appropriately for the occasion.
4. Stand Up for What You Believe in
People grow up with their own sets of beliefs. These beliefs include their morals, their virtues, their family, and their religion. The thing about these beliefs is that they have to be defended. As a trait of manhood, a good rule to teach your son is for him to stand up for what he believes in.
A person’s identity is made up of so many different factors, and his belief systems are a big part of it. Everyone can have their own opinions on certain matters, but it takes loyalty and strength to back them up.
When you teach your son to stand up for what he believes in, he will grow up to be a respected man, he will gain confidence, and he will grow up to be his own person. He could even use his beliefs to find more people like him, people he can enjoy spending time with.
However, it is important to remember to teach your son that he can believe whatever he wants – as long as it is not at the expense of other people. Unchecked, these dangerous belief systems are what lead to racism, zealotry, prejudice, and more.
5. Take Responsibility
As a parent, you’d want your son to grow up to be successful in his endeavors – to grow up to be a good man. One of the important rules you’d need to teach your son is to take responsibility. The earlier your son internalizes this rule, the easier it will be for him to go through life.
There are a number of reasons why taking responsibility is an important rule to teach your son. Firstly, taking responsibility is one of the earliest markers of maturity. Taking responsibility means they understand when they have done something wrong. This is the first step toward making amends.
As your son learns how to take responsibility, it becomes a valuable tool for interacting with other people. Taking responsibility allows your son to be an adult and provides an opportunity for your son to fix mistakes that he may make in the future with his friends and loved ones.
Not only can taking responsibility help him in his future relationships but even in his career. Your son will be able to show his potential for growth in his workplace in the future when he shows the people he works with that he is able to own up to his mistakes.
6. Don’t Be Afraid to Be Vulnerable
Too often have boys been told by their stoic fathers how a “real man” does not show his emotions. It is high time that untruth is buried along with other misconceptions of the past. Your son will be better off when you teach him that being vulnerable and emotional does not take away from his masculinity.
When you raise your son to be in touch with his emotions, you are raising someone who will become more empathetic and understanding in the future. Too many men these days have trouble connecting with other people due to the fact they were raised to think that being emotional is weak.
Society has taught men that women prefer the more traditional male. In fact, a survey showed that 95% of women actually prefer men who are open about their emotions. Practically all of them also include that they find men crying to be strong, natural, or healthy.
7. Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help
Another lesson that was incorrectly taught to boys before was that they cannot ask for help. This has even turned into a running joke about how men cannot stop to ask for directions even when they are completely lost.
There is no reason to hold your son back in life. It is important to teach him early that he should not be afraid to ask for help, especially if it meant him struggling otherwise.
However, it might be better to also teach your son the right time to ask for help. People are willing to offer help whenever they can, but sometimes there are those who become societal parasites when they ask others to do everything for them.
Teach your son that while it is perfectly fine to ask for help, make sure that he has already tried to solve the problem on his own. It will become an important lesson in self-reliability as your son will grow up to learn to solve his own problems first, before going to someone to ask for help.
8. Be Honest
In the rules above, you would be teaching your son to be loyal and respectful. If it weren’t already a given, it is also necessary to teach your son to be honest if you want him to grow up to be a good man. It is no wonder why children are taught at an early age that honesty is always the best policy.
Society is built on trust – relationships as well. Thus, the importance of being honest cannot be exaggerated.
There are so many aspects of life where honesty comes into play. Honesty is necessary for building relationships with one another. Honesty is necessary for following even the simplest laws. The most prestigious of positions and titles have oathtaking ceremonies where honesty is front and center.
9. Pursue Your Passions
Life is too short for people to do things that they are not passionate about. However, many people often do so for a number of reasons, although one of the most common reasons include fear of failure. If you want your son to grow up happy, one easy way is to let him pursue his passions.
As a parent, how do you do it? How do you let your son follow his dreams? An easy way is to be a supportive parent. If he’s interested in learning an instrument, get him some lessons. If he wants to learn woodworking, get him started on it as a hobby.
When you allow your son to get into things he is interested in, it removes the fear of trying out new things which many people have. Your son will grow up to be a curious and adventurous man who will be able to believe in himself as you believed in him growing up.
10. Lead by Example
While there are plenty more rules to teach your son for him to grow up to be a good man, perhaps the last rule to teach him is one that you must follow yourself – lead by example.
You would want your son to follow all the rules you have set out for him to grow up to be a good man. However, the best way for those rules to stick is by you serving as a role model for him to look up to. It will only confuse him if you tell him to do one thing, and yet he sees you doing the exact opposite.
If you want your son to become a good person, you have to be a good person yourself. It can be difficult to verbalize and teach your son everything you think a good person should do, but you can simply be a good person yourself for him to emulate.
