Tips for Building Self-awareness Skills in Early Childhood
By helping your child develop self-awareness, they’ll be better able to understand themselves and to see the impact of their actions on themselves and others.
By helping your child develop self-awareness, they’ll be better able to understand themselves and to see the impact of their actions on themselves and others.
Self-awareness is defined as being aware of your strengths, weaknesses, moods, and feelings. By helping your child develop self-awareness, they’ll be better able to understand themselves and to see the impact of their actions on themselves and others. They’ll then be better balanced to face difficult situations at home, school, and with others. Their self-esteem will undoubtedly be enhanced.
When should parents begin to help foster self-awareness skills in young children?
You can start promoting self-awareness when children are about two years old. Through various activities and ongoing practice, they’ll eventually sharpen and apply self-awareness skills when needed.
How does self-awareness develop?
Like other skills, self-awareness develops over time. Kids first need to recognize and name their emotions, identify their strengths and challenges, and acknowledge their likes and dislikes.
What activities can parents do with their children to promote self-awareness?
Children can be taught about different emotions and how these emotions make them feel through a variety of fun, engaging activities.
Here are 6 activities to do just that!
Purpose: Through identifying different emotions, the child learns about self-awareness and how to express their feelings. They also begin to see that through emotions, we can tell how people feel.
Purpose: By attending to a scenario presented in a story, children develop empathy. Through changing the storyline, your child is encouraged to think about what they would do differently and how this set of circumstances also changes how they feel.
Purpose: Children express themselves and can see how others have strengths and weaknesses by identifying what they’re good at. It also informs children that everyone has strengths and that you can work on your weaknesses to do better. Further, it teaches children that others perceive them a certain way and that actions help form these perceptions.
Purpose: Interactions help the child communicate their feelings and express themselves. They’re better able to see their abilities and how they can self-advocate to speak up for what they need. They recognize their strengths and challenges.
Purpose: The main goal of this activity is not to teach responsibility, but to show how your actions can make others feel including yourself.
Purpose: The main goal of this activity isn’t to teach responsibility, but to show how your actions can make others feel including yourself.
As children grow, their self-awareness skills will unfold. It’s important to nurture these skills so your child can reach their greatest potential.