Challenges and trials surely seem like villains in any story. However, the fact is that the challenges work as the defining factor for how a person sees himself/herself and also the world around him/her. In fact, studies reveal that the more a child is exposed to small and manageable challenges during the formative years, the more are the chances for him/her to grow into a well-rounded and confident person in the future.
We, at Delhi Public School Sushant Lok, one of the best CBSE affiliated schools in Gurgaon, believe that when we start teaching kids the importance of embracing challenges in life and how to manage them well, we basically prepare them for anything that comes their way in the future. This is why it is rather important to encourage the kids to see challenges as nothing but stepping stones to success. And here are a few ways you can try and adopt to prepare your kids to face challenges head-on rather than running away from them.
Challenges are not Evil – Changing the Mindset
The major difference between holistic and limiting education is the learning mindset. When kids have a fixed mindset, they believe their potential and skills are limited, and they give up on the face of adversaries easily. But when children are raised with a growth mindset, their abilities and potential also grow. These kids are better at adapting themselves as per the situations and never avoid tackling challenges in life.
One great way to enable this transition is by letting them embrace challenges and encouraging the kids to overcome them. And here are the key benefits they derive when they learn to do so:
- Aids in the development of self-esteem in children.
- Makes them more confident.
- Changes the mindset from fixed type to a growth type mindset.
- Prepares the kids to face any adversary later in life.
- Makes them better at handling stress.
- Helps them become optimistic in life.
How to encourage children to take on challenges?
Contrary to the belief that challenges merely bring stress to life, we, at DPS Sushant Lok, believe that challenges, when presented to kids in the right manner, help them become more confident of themselves. Such experiences teach them how to respond to similar challenges positively in life, and this thereby also helps to boost their self-esteem. So here, we have brought for you a few tips you can use to inculcate challenge-based learning in your child’s routine.
- Start small and slowly build up – Challenges are necessary for child development. But does that mean you should push them off the cliff, hoping they’d learn how to fly? Absolutely not! Start with small, easy-to-overcome challenges and slowly build from there.
- Encourage them to try out new things – Kids are no less than curious little beings who are always up for trying their hands at something new and different. Make use of this tendency of theirs, and instead of stopping them from trying out new things, encourage them to partake in different kinds of activities under your supervision. Ask them to try at least one new thing that they are scared of every six months and see their confidence fly high.
- Be their role model – Just telling your kids to learn to handle stress and not following the same ideology yourself is never going to help. If you want to teach your kids something, make sure that you model the same behavior yourself. After all, your kids learn the most by observing and following you. Hence, be their role models and let them learn such vital life skills from you.
Helen Keller once said, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” There’s nothing truer than that. Life is what happens when you are trying to overcome a new challenge every day. At DPS Sushant Lok, one of the most well-known CBSE affiliated schools in Gurgaon, we understand that as parents, you always strive to make your children’s lives as comfortable as you can. But no matter what you do, there is simply no way to immunize them against challenges. And this is exactly why it is imperative to prepare them to confidently face the challenges that life poses to them. And we hope this article would be helpful to you in this regard.