DivyaParenting is nurturing through the heart, it is a voyage of sorts. As our children grow, both the parents play an equally important role to help the child navigate his way through the turbulent years by nurturing various skills. Optimism is one of the basic life skill which must be taught to our children. Learn how to teach kids optimism.
Positive Parenting
Before how to teach kids optimism, start with positive parenting, you must write down on a paper first “what you want your child to be”. Describe in one or two words what you want him to become in his life. Some of the common answers of parents are – they want their children to be happy, confident, healthy, fulfilled, good person, successful, independent, to be loved and socially acceptable.
The second thing which you need to write down is “what is it that their school teaches them?” Most probable answers are English, Mathematics, Science, Language, etc. School teaches them various subjects and how to answer the test papers.
The third thing you need to answer is, how many things are overlapping in the first and second answers you wrote above. Chances are very less or might be none.
We as parents, need to teach them the life skills or tools closer to what they want to become. Give them positive education along with the basic and necessary life skills such as resilience, kindness, confidence, and optimism. Use these tools to make yourself happy and your children happier which will help them during their lifetime.
Commit to helping yourself and your children irrespective of anything. Ask yourself what you are doing differently to change yourself as a parent. What have you been able to change the lifestyle of your children to make it positive? Learn positive attitude before learning how to teach kids optimism.
Positive Attitude
A positive attitude is a state of mind which needs to be developed. This can be done by helping nature, good habits, optimism, readiness to learn and avoid negative people and negative thoughts. This positive attitude is of prime importance since childhood.
If your child learns how to apply a good and positive attitude to a bad situation, it will work like a miracle. Someone said it rightly, “It is the attitude that decides the altitude you achieve”. This is the sure cure for all the hurdles. And now you know how to teach kids optimism!
Optimism and our Children
It is hard to teach children optimism. Is it always good to be optimistic in life? Reality is, it is not always good but it is really important to teach our children optimism.
Phrases like ‘don’t worry, be happy, everything will be fine’ are strong enough to change someone’s state of mind. On the contrary, pessimistic people tend to see bad things and problems as permanent and create stories in their mind. They think if one bad thing happened, it is an indication of more bad things are on their way. They tend to be more depressed in their life.
For example, if a child has failed in an exam, he starts thinking I’m failing, I’m not good at anything, I have failed this exam, I’m not going to do anything in life. He has started making negative stories in his mind. This is the pessimist behavior.
Now an optimist will say in the same situation – I have failed this exam as I did not study hard. But last time when I studied harder and devoted more time, I got good marks. I had good sleep and a healthy breakfast before the exam. I used to do exercise and more organized. If I’ll follow the same pattern and reappear for the exam with a few positive changes, I’ll definitely get a good result.
This is the grounded optimism which you need to learn and teach to your children.
Few Tips on how to teach kids optimism
- Look on the brighter side, see the negative incidents as temporary and external.
- Learn how to apply grounded optimism in life and face unexpected challenges.
- Create positive self-talk even if the things are not going as you planned.
- Take positive accountability for your mistakes to stay in control of your choices and attitude.
- Reword negative pessimistic statements into positive optimistic statements.
- Be careful, there are no major problems your child is facing, discuss with them frankly and guide.
- Tell them to share with you if something has made them unhappy. They should not store negative emotions inside, let it flow out.
- Also, ask them the positive things that happened to them throughout the day which made them happy.
- Share your ‘roses’ and ‘thorns’ as well and discuss how you have handled that phase. Experiences of parents show children the light through the way.
- Recognize and praise positive behavior. Encourage them to have more of it.
- Help your child to take positive actions towards achieving his goals.
We need to discuss with our children that things around us do not define us, it is inside us what defines us and is most important in life. One can take or snatch away everything from us, but not our talent or our instincts.
Respond to the event with Optimism
Life is not about being happy always, all emotions are good but we should learn to bring the level of happiness above all other emotions.
Bad things do happen in life but we can face them with the help of optimism. It is the positive behavior of how you respond to the situation even if it is the hardest. Responding to the event is more important. Build this trait in your children and make them learn optimism.
Younger parents want to give everything to their children. They are not helping them, instead, they are depriving their children. They try to replace the things they need instead of teaching them how to respond to the negative event. We should prepare them for the things which might go wrong in their life. We as parents will not be with them forever. Whatever you will teach them your kids, they will pick up these traits in life. Be the role model and mentor your children. Yes, there are certain situations when being overly optimistic is not good for children.
Let me brief the famous story here related to how to teach kids optimism. A crow was sitting on a tree doing nothing all day. A small rabbit saw the crow and asked him “Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long?” Crow replied, “Sure, why not!” The rabbit sat on the ground below the crow and rested. All of a sudden, a fox jumped on it and ate it.
Moral: To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very high up on the top.
Laying down on a couch and do nothing for weeks will make you miserable. Taking a break or going on a vacation is no harm as you are doing something else which makes you happy. It will recharge you to work with more efficiency when you will get back.
Did you like this blog on how to teach kids optimism? Have more tips to add that taught you and your child optimism? Please share how to teach kids optimism with us in the comments section below.
Wish you a very Happy and Optimistic Parenting!
