Self-Management for Kids -- A HeyKiddo™ Guide
Self-management is one of the most powerful skills you can teach kids when it comes to building emotional wellness skills that last a lifetime.
It can be a good way for parents and educators to think about "discipline."
Rather than punish children for making mistakes like hitting their siblings, lying, or talking back, you can guide their behavior through skills like conflict resolution and goal-setting for kids to make better choices in the future.
There's no one formula when it comes to teaching your kids how best to develop these important life tools. But knowing how to teach kids using social-emotional learning can set them up for a lifetime of success.
Self-management is a set of skills that includes impulse control, mindfulness, stress management, and emotional awareness. Kids need these skills to succeed in a fast-paced world.
If you're looking for some self-management tips, this blog post will help! Here are some ways that you can introduce self-management to your children today.
Mastering Time Management as Self-Management
Time management is a skill commonly taught to adults in the workforce. But with our increasingly busy lives, it’s important for kids at all stages of life and age levels to learn.
Time management means knowing how to best manage time to prioritize what matters most!
Break down tasks into small steps that don't take more than one minute each (called "chunking").
This also allows kids to practice making choices about personal preferences and gives them some control over how work gets done.
When you understand yourself, you can make better choices about how to reach your goals. That's called self-awareness and it's an important part of self-management.
Teach your kids to complete tasks within their own time frame. Allow them as much independence in completing a task without pressure from you.
This way they are able to learn how long it takes based on what's being done (or completed). This will also teach self-awareness when working towards deadlines.
"The idea of making lists and setting goals like New Year's resolutions might be helpful because it allows kids some control over things in life outside themselves as well," says Dr. Nicole Lipkin, founder of HeyKiddo.
Increasing Emotional Awareness
Helping kids understand their emotions and what they mean is key to self-management. Emotional awareness means the ability to name emotions.
It also means recognizing physical responses to emotions and regulate how you respond to emotions rather than react. Even though kids don't often have the same ability as adults to rationalize their feelings, you can start talking to kids about how emotions feel at a very early age.
Sharing your experiences around emotions even when you feel stressed as a parent or teacher can go a long way to model skills.
Emotional awareness is closely tied to mindfulness, which is a practice of staying calm and focused in the present moment.
Mindfulness is also closely tied to physical sensations and being aware of your senses and that can increase emotional awareness by bringing attention to the connection between how our bodies react to stress.
For kids, frequent conversations about emotions can help them understand and build emotional awareness. Self management is an important skill all children need but don’t come by naturally; kids often learn these life lessons later than adults might anticipate or want.
It's never too early or too late to start talking to children about their emotional wellbeing.
Conflict Resolution for Kids
Conflict resolution skills are important for kids to have in their self-management tool kit. It's not always easy, but it is possible - and there can be a lot of benefits!
Kids who learn these essential life lessons early on will grow more confident with themselves as they take care when handling disagreements or conflicts that arise at school among friends outside the house while out playing together.
Learning how different people deal differently under stress develops empathy too which helps us form relationships better both inside our family circles and beyond them.
Being able to notice what we feel during conflict gives children opportunities like learning other skills like social awareness, which is the ability to consider other people's opinions in a variety of situations.
Being able to practice conflict resolution without adult intervention is a skill that will be needed throughout life - not just in school or at home, but also when dealing on their own outside of any environment where adults may always be available to provide support.
Conflict resolution is also a skill related to leadership development. Children can be leaders in bigger ways like leading a student council, but can also show important leadership skills at school and in a friend group.
Knowing how to navigate conflict in relationships helps them learn how to communicate and how to make your child resilient.
Stress Management Is Self-Management
When we think of stress management this often relates back again with the ability in kids being able use their own coping mechanisms without relying on adults or parents too heavily - which allows them independence while still having support at home if they need it."
Stress management can include activities like:
meditating before school starts each day
doing breathing exercises during an anxiety attack
taking time off social media after reading negative comments online about themselves
All of the above ways young people have come up these strategies independently rather than simply asking others what would work best (which might not always work for your child).
Stress is part of everyone's life everyday, and should be a regular part of the whole family's emotional wellness plan.
Using a family mindfulness journal is another way to help everyone manage their stress levels. Kids can write about what they're feeling or drawing pictures that represent how they feel.
Parents should also share these ideas with children so everyone has an understanding of these coping skills from childhood through adulthood.
How HeyKiddo Can Help
Self-management is a CASEL competency that spans a wide variety of developmental social, emotional, and leadership skills.
HeyKiddo™ Talk and HeyKiddo™ Huddle are designed to give parents and teachers everything they need, when they need it, to build lifelong social, emotional and leadership skills at home or in the classroom.
Join today to access our Stress Management Toolkit to get started and learn how you can help build these important skills at home or at school!