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Life Skills: Goal Setting + Perseverance = Confidence

 

Teaching character and life skills to students

Marie Curie said, “Life is not easy for any of us. We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.”
When you think about the goals you have already achieved you no doubt can look back and say that perseverance played a large part in accomplishing that goal.  Maybe it was riding your bike or learning to swim or conquering that math problem.  Each goal that you set out to achieve was conquered by doing the little things and not giving up.

It may not have been easy, but now that you know that if you work hard, put in the effort and get coached for knowledge and skill, you can accomplish anything that you set out to do.  This is important for every aspect of our life, including our academics, social or work we want to do on ourselves emotionally.  Step by step, little accomplishments when strung together with perseverance results in great achievement.  Great achievement will build confidence for the next goal that you want to reach.

In our next article on perseverance we will look at what to do when we do not think our child puts forth enough effort to reach goals and helping them learn about goal setting.  This will be a great way to start the new school year.

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Life Skills: How Children Lose Confidence and Creativity

Confidence is a feeling that we have that is rooted in working hard, having goals and overcoming challenges.  Confidence gives us the positive energy that we need to be willing to take risks and to move forward with our pursuit of goals, even when we know it might be difficult.  When we are feeling confident we are willing to accept challenges that others may not, and we are likely to succeed.

Amazingly though there always seems to be one or more persons around who will challenge us and say or do things that is intended to make us feel less than confident.  They may question our goals, ideas or dreams as not being real.  It is funny how when we are very young we think we can do anything.  One of our sons dreamed to play soccer on the moon and to be a paleontologist.  Yet in just a few short years, in fact by the time a child is 10 or so, they have lost that confidence and creativity. (Take a look at this TED Talk)   Others have told them to “be real”, “that is not possible”, or other things that lead them to feel that they need to get in line with “reality”.  What a shame for our young people.

Others just for the sake of making themselves feel “better than”, make others feel “stupid”, “less than”, and may boast or brag in a way that someone might feel that they cannot live up to that persons abilities or life.  While it is hard to get when it is happening, when one person is bragging or “putting others down’, they really are not building themselves up in anyone’s mind but their own.  When we need to tell everyone how great we are, it shows a lack of confidence in ourselves.  Unfortunately both adults and youngsters share in this activity, and bring down some very creative confident young people in the process. Continue reading “Life Skills: How Children Lose Confidence and Creativity”

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Life Skills: Build Confidence in Children To Try New Foods & Meet New People

Every parent has had to look at their child and say to them, “Look at their eyes”, when someone is talking to them.  We continue to stress that because we know that doing so is first of all respectful and it also helps the child build confidence.  Helping our children build confidence can be a rather difficult and long term project for us parents.

Here are a couple of examples of how to help our children build confidence.  Lets first recommend that when we are confident in ourselves we may be willing to try new things and meet new people.  For others this could be a scary thing and make us very nervous.  As a parent though we should continue to introduce new foods or a new activity to our children and encourage them to use their courage when trying this new part to their life.

If our children are not confident in trying a new food – they may pick at it or complain immediately, even before tasting the food.   Continue reading “Life Skills: Build Confidence in Children To Try New Foods & Meet New People”

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The 6 Most Dangerous Trends Facing Our Children Today

The world we live in is constantly changing and as parents it can be challenging to know what our children are facing and trying to deal with on an everyday basis.  The way we were raised may have been good for the time that we lived in, but now is a different age and era with a whole new set of issues, ideas and challenges.  Unfortunately our children are facing these challenges everyday and they may not have the words or the courage to tell us what is going on in their minds and hearts.

This may not be the lists that ends all lists, but I believe it gets to the root of many of the issues that our children are having to deal with.  So what are the trends that our children are dealing with?  Not in any particular order I have placed these.  You may think your child is not dealing with some of them.  That may be true and then again maybe not.  As you consider each of these and look at the references and further reading I encourage you to stay close to your child, talk to them without judging, build a community around them, help them feel like they belong to something that is bigger than them.

Here is the list of our 6 Most Dangerous Trends Facing Our Children Today. Continue reading “The 6 Most Dangerous Trends Facing Our Children Today”

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Life Skills: Building Confidence in Mind and Body

Recently I completed a list and investigation into the top 6 trends that were most dangerous to our children today.  I must say that it is not just our children, but in fact adults too that must deal with these 6 dangerous trends.  One of the trends that students of all ages must deal with is low self confidence.

How is it that our children go from being able to do anything that their minds can imagine at the age of 3 & 4 to feeling that they are not “smart enough”, “good enough”, “thin enough”,  “successful enough”,  in such a short period of time?  As each child gets older they many times are influenced by the opinions of others as their method of measuring themselves.  As they listen and watch those in their circle of companions, they begin to believe that this is how they should look, act, and be.

It is that “self talk” that can make us feel horrible about our bodies and mind.  One of the influences that everyone of us must combat is the influence of the media.  Yet the portrayal of the models and lifestyles of the celebrities many times is created in unnatural and fake ways that does not relate to the real world or maybe even that person.

Build Confidence In Your Body

Your body can do some amazing things.  Your body is different than anyone else.  We can be confident in our bodies and who we are, what our skills are,  and how we approach our life.  That does not mean that we should not take care of ourselves. It does mean though that the world of fake looks and lifestyles should not be our goal.  Our goal can be to continue to make positive changes in ourselves through eating healthy, getting regular exercise, and getting the sleep we need.  It means hanging out with kind and thoughtful individuals, developing our knowledge and points of view, and not being skewed by those that want to sell us something.

Visit this blog regularly as the 6 Most Dangerous Trends Facing Our Children Today is coming soon!

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Life Skills: Teaching Children to Make Choices with Confidence

Every day everyone of us have choices to make.  Have you ever thought about how you feel about the choices that you are making?  Do you feel confident in those choices?  Our children go through the same questions and the confidence they show every day in making those choices will be tested.

There will be times when the decisions they have to make will be more important than just what they are wearing or what they will eat.  They will be making choices about who their friends are, how hard to work in school, if they will smoke, drink or do drugs.  They will have tough choices to make about standing up for what is right or just ignoring what is happening right in front of them.

Our children need to know that we are there to help them and that we want to know what is going on in their life.  But we should not assume that they want us to jump in and rescue them from every situation or solve all of their problems.  In fact doing so will not teach the problem solving skills or give them the confidence to make the harder choices later in life.

Build Confidence in Choices

There are things that we can do though to help build the confidence our child has.  Here is one suggestion.  Be aware of the type of self talk going on with your child.  Are they putting themselves down, suggesting to themselves that they are not good at anything, or not good at something or not able to make friends.

Help your child change the voice that they hear on the inside with practicing positive statements and seeing themselves solve problems that they now might believe to be unsolvable.  Role playing with them and letting them know that you understand the anxiety that they may be feeling will go a long way as they begin to believe the more positive statements.