4 Ways To Promote Self-awareness In Children
Helping children learn about themselves, understand their emotions and assess their attitudes lays the foundation for emotional health for the rest of their lives.
Self-awareness is the key to emotional fulfillment. If we gain this ability, we will always have a strategy for controlling our emotions.
That is why it is important that we cultivate these aspects in our children so that they grow up healthy and happy. Here are four ways you can help your kids develop their self-awareness.
What others think does not define us
Believing we are what others think of us is a common mistake among children (and adults, too, of course). At a certain age, kids tend to put a label on just about anything, even people.
Initially, these classifications can be an important effort to try to understand the world. However, it works against the recognition of our own identity. We eventually come to believe that we are really just a collection of labels: tall, fat, handsome, intelligent.
This obviously doesn’t define a person, but it can lead to a child’s behavior and thoughts being shaped by it if they are exposed to it over several years.
It is important for a child to understand that his classmate is not only “the one who is the best at football”, but that he also thinks, feels, laughs and cries.
We don’t have to let our emotions control us
Children need to understand that before an emotion (such as anger, for example) manifests itself strongly, it has already given us many warnings and shown itself in subtle ways on many levels.
We can use a metaphor for a recipe. Encourage your child to think about the taste of their emotions and slowly learn to recognize each of the ingredients. We can play the game forwards or backwards, starting with the uncooked ingredients or with the empty board. Thus, they will unravel every ingredient from the taste of every emotion.
Goals don’t define us, our attitudes do
It is common to ask children the wonderful question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” They answer: doctor, nurse, hairdresser, carpenter… Then we ask them why they want to become one and the conversation is over.
Ultimately, “what do you want to become” is a great start to a conversation, but does it define a child? Of course not. This is just an example, but children need to know that we are not what we achieve or want to achieve.
Children need to understand that their own efforts and attitudes are what will determine their future, their expectations or hopes. We should encourage them to mentally explore their possibilities and potential paths and to develop a proactive and independent attitude towards the future.
Look for self-awareness every day
Recognizing our children’s emotional states and thoughts will help them develop their social-emotional skills well.
Helping our children reach this stage of emotional development takes a lot of time and effort. It is important to be patient. We should encourage the child to get into a daily habit of thinking about what they did, how they felt, what they like and how they can get it.
All you need to do is encourage them to think about their day, likes and dislikes. An ideal way to do that is to speak of the mind as “the thinking machine” that you have to take care of and check in with. This helps them understand how important it is to be in touch with yourself.
