Our family does dictate a great portion of our personality and capabilities. When parents believe in their children and encourage them to stretch the envelope from what other’s are able to accomplish, children will be more likely to become lifetime achievers.
When children witness their parent’s accomplishments, it becomes second nature to them that is a natural way of life. It is also true when children view their parent perceptually failing in their lives with loosing their jobs, struggling with their income and other struggles, they will more than likely repeat their parents patterns.
Unless of course, they have mentors who show up throughout their years of development. I was very fortunate, I had a teacher in the fourth grade who took notice and paid extra attention to me. She would go out of her way to encourage me in my studies.
In the tenth grade my English teacher kept me after school and had me hold my tongue while reading Shakespeare. But the end of the year I no longer stuttered. It was an amazing gift and one that opened my mind to the possibility of being able to change anything I wanted to. It was the beginning of a life time of behavior changes I have chosen to make. Every year I choose another habit, trait or idiosyncrasy and focus on it the entire year until I’ve been able to change it.