Empowering Children

Empowering children is essential to their future success and by being parents, guardians and educators this task is left up to us.

Confident children with great self-esteem tend to be more able to handle day-to-day situations, are less likely to be bullied in school, will be the first to take the initiative and volunteer to take part in activities, and tend not to hesitate to raise questions when they not sure of something. These are the children who grow to reap the benefits from life and grow to be future leaders.

Here are a few ways you can start empowering your children on a day-to-day basis:

Start early:

1. Let your children do for themselves as much as they can, such as eating, dressing themselves,Guide them, but do not do it for them. Learning to be self-sufficient at a young age will benefit them in the future.
2. Let them try something new, this can be anything from new equipment at the park or and activity at home. Teach them the safety rules and stand by them and let them try as many times as necessary until they succeed. This will take patients on your side and ability to stand back.
3. Give them responsibilities. This can be as simple as letting them place mats at the dinner table, sort the laundry or clean up after themselves.

When you allow your children to do for themselves you are sending a message, “You can do it”. When you do it for them you are sending a message “I can do it, you cant”, and this messages repeated enough times leads a child to subconsciously think that they are not capable of doing things rather than a more positive “I can do anything if they try.”

What message would you like to send?