5 Methods Parents Can Use to Develop Their Child’s Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is the ability to understand how and why you feel the way you feel about yourself. Self-awareness also deals with understanding how and why you feel about the world around you.
It’s important to have self-awareness if you want to live a purposeful life. The only way you can identify what you love to do is by being self-aware of how you spend your time when you are most enthusiastic and fulfilled. This self-awareness is the first step to living life with purpose.
In addition, self-awareness is also important for personal growth. If you want to improve your performance in anything, you first must be self-aware enough to listen to your body and to know what a good or great performance feels like.
With that said, self-awareness doesn’t always come naturally as children mature from adolescence into adulthood. Often, those who are most self-aware went through very specific types of experiences to develop the skill. If you are a parent of a child who needs help with self-awareness, below are 5 methods to consider.
Developing Self-Awareness in Children
- The first key to developing self-awareness in a child is build their self-confidence. When someone is self-confident, they have a positive outlook on life and will show themselves compassion. This is important because if you constantly beat yourself up over your weaknesses, you are less likely to be honest with yourself. Honesty with yourself is a must for developing self-awareness.
- Use the tools provided by Gallup to identify your child’s strengths. Children ages 10-14 can take the Clifton’s Youth Strengths Explorer. Teens 15 and older can take the Clifton Strengths Finder. For younger children, you can use the strengths spotting techniques explained in this article. Once you know your child’s strengths you can help your child become self-aware about how to use their strengths. This self-awareness will then positively cascade into all areas of their life.
- Push children out of their comfort zone early and often. For example, you can have them try a sport like youth wrestling. Youth wrestling is a sport known for building self-awareness because it’s such an emotional sport. This forces children to deal with winning and losing in front of friends and family in unique ways. It’s one of the few sports that actually requires children to learn how to lose in order to win. Learning how to lose and how to bounce back is critical for developing self-awareness.
- Use storytelling and examples from the real world, books, movies, music and news to explain emotions and how they impact others. When you see your children in various emotional states, help them recall these examples to explain their feelings. Then help your child recognize their common emotional reactions in others.
- Help your children understand their emotional triggers. Recognize when and why they have rapid emotional shifts, and keep a mental note. When their emotions get back to normal, discuss the trigger and help them develop coping techniques to manage their triggers.