First Things First: Why Kids Need to Develop Self-Awareness
When you want to help your child develop social, emotional, and leadership skills, knowing what to start with can be a bit of a challenge. What's most important--resilience? Mindfulness? Emotional understanding? Structured thinking? There are a lot of skills kids (and adults!) can learn to manage stress and improve relationships and each plays a part. At HeyKiddo™, we've developed a complete system to build these lifelong skills and it all starts with self-awareness.
Self-awareness is the ability to reflect on personal strengths and weaknesses in order to make decisions. It's the first skill we cover in both our home and school products because it's important for goal setting, working with others, and practicing vital self-management techniques.
Self-awareness is often used within personal development and coaching for adults. Self-awareness allows us to identify the aspects of ourselves that manifest in our work, school, and families. One of the most important parts of the self-awareness process is to identify “blind spots” or areas of ourselves that we are not fully aware of. In self-reflecting, we can better
understand how others view us, why patterns of behaviors may exist, and insight into our individual strengths and weaknesses so we can better and more accurately plan for the future. Self-awareness allows your child to begin to develop a grounded sense of self that ultimately guides decisions in the future.
Self-awareness also makes it possible to build great teams and accept weaknesses without judgement. For example, if your kiddo knows that they tend to take a more passive role on group projects because they don't like speaking in front of a group, they can volunteer to be the notetaker. That helps them stay engaged and demonstrates their own strength to lead the group.
As you continue to develop your child's self-awareness skills, ask them to reflect on why they make certain choices. Help them identify what they know about themselves by letting them know what you see in them. ("You improved your math grade by studying a little more every day. You must be the kind of person who is most successful doing a little everyday instead of one big study session.") Daily conversations with your kiddo make a big difference in their skill-development!