Nurturing confidence and self-esteem in our children is important to establish early on. I think we can agree that confidence and self-esteem can be built at any time in our lives, but why not place a focus on instilling this from early childhood? Learn how you can instill these character traits within your child. ✨INCLUDES A FREEBIE✨
A supportive and consistent adult presence is vital to the life of a child; shaping the foundation of their social, emotional, cognitive and language skills. How can you actively translate supporting the kiddos in your life through the ups, downs and curveballs that life brings their way?
There is so much power behind naming our emotions. We want to teach children a broad emotional vocabulary so that they are able to label their feelings and we are better able to support them. So, how can we do this?
Ending the school year can bring on a multitude of mixed emotions for our children (and us). Our children are saying goodbye to peers and adored teachers and other school staff, heading away from secure school routines, and some even moving on to new schools next school year.
When a traumatic event occurs in a child’s life, it’s important that we respond with safety, comfort, and validation. Adults will need to help the child manage extremely tough and often intense, and even frightening emotions. We must help our children feel safe by listening to their feelings, questions and concerns. We will need to keep communication open, validate their feelings, and finally, help them recover using healthy coping skills.
When conflict arises and feelings get hurt, repair is essential to restoring trust and connection with your child. When we repair after conflict, we create a more trusting and peaceful environment in our home. All parties involved feel more confident in knowing that connection can be restored, and that trust, safety, and respect are important family values.
As educators, parents, caretakers, or healthcare professionals, we often experience children feeling their toughest emotions. Difficult emotions frequently come in tandem with challenging behaviors. So what can we do to support our children?
Mental health refers to our emotional and social health. Our mental health and wellness impacts how we think, feel, and behave. When we are mentally healthy, we are better able to cope with difficult emotions, enjoy life, build and sustain relationships, and overall feel good about ourselves.
A person's intellectual ability or intelligence quotient (IQ) isn’t enough on its own to achieve success in life. Our IQ can definitely help us achieve and get into college, if we so choose, but it’s our emotional intelligence (EQ/IQ) that will help us manage the stress, emotions and relationships throughout life.
Just like all things in life, emotional intelligence skills are learned at different rates, there is no single model of how children will develop emotional intelligence. The most important thing we can do is model the responses and behaviors we want to see in our students and children.
When we teach our children to stand up to peer pressure, refuse to go along with the crowd when something feels wrong, try new activities or classes, stand up to bullying, master something new in the face of frustration, or ask for help in difficult situations – this is bravery!
During the preschool years, children will often begin showing signs of developing and understanding a broader sense of the world around them, this includes a greater awareness of others, relationship building and beginning to understand realistic vs. fantasy.
