4 Ways To Promote Children’s Self-knowledge
Helping our children to recognize themselves, understand their emotions and value their attitudes is the key to achieving good emotional health throughout their lives.
Self-knowledge is the key that opens the door to emotional fulfillment. In fact, once we acquire this skill, we can be sure that we will always have an emotional regulation strategy at our service.
Therefore, it is of great importance to cultivate these aspects in our children so that they grow up healthy and happy. Then we offer 4 lessons that will help us promote self – awareness in children:
1-A person is not what others think of him
Believing that we are what they think of us is a very common mistake both in children’s thinking and, of course, in adults. In fact, at certain ages, children tend to label almost everything, even people.
In the beginning, these classifications can suppose in an important saving to be related to the world. However, they take a toll on the recognition of our identity and we end up believing that we are basically the tall one, the fat one, the handsome or the smart one.
This, of course, does not define a person but it does end up determining their behaviors and thoughts if they are, for a long time, subjected to external labels and expectations.
If the child understands that his classmate is not only “the one who plays soccer the best” but also thinks, feels, laughs and cries, then we will have half the way to understand that we are all independent worlds.
2-We must not let our emotions rule us
The child must understand that before an emotion manifests itself strongly (for example, anger), it has given us a lot of warnings and it has been subtly shown on many levels.
We can use the metaphor of the recipe. This consists of the child reflecting on the taste of their emotions and, little by little, recognizing each of the ingredients. We can start the game from the front or from the back, that is, with the dish cooked or uncooked and, thus, reel off each ingredient or nuance that makes up the flavor of emotion.
3-Purposes do not define us, our attitudes do
It is quite common that we ask them the wonderful question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” . Then they answer us: doctor, nurse, hairdresser, carpenter … Then, at most, we ask them why they want to be and that’s it.
After all, “wanting to be when you grow up…” is child’s play; but .., does that define them? Of course not. This is just an example, but infants have to experience that we are not what we achieve or what we want to achieve, but that we are constantly managing our identity.
Therefore, children have to understand that their search and their attitude will be what shape their future, not their expectations or their wishes. They must be allowed to mentally explore their possibilities and the path they have to travel, always fostering a proactive and independent attitude towards their future. This will help them not to hold themselves back.
4- It is important to reserve your own and intimate space every day
The recognition of your state of mind and your thoughts will help you develop your socio-emotional skills in the appropriate way.
However, getting our children to this degree of emotional development requires us to invest time and effort. The first thing we have to do is prevent them from being contaminated by the rush and bad habits that today’s adult society maintains.
It is necessary to facilitate and encourage the child to acquire the daily habit of reflecting on what they have done, how they have felt, what things they like and how they can achieve them.
It is simply about inviting you to start the game of thinking about your day, your wants and your dislikes. An ideal way to do this is to establish a simile between your mind and a thinking machine, thus making you understand the importance of connecting with yourself.
