It is one of our many duties as parents and teachers to teach our children to live skillfully. The best way to do this is to live skillfully ourselves. They are always watching us and always copying us. To live skillfully is not easy! I have just turned 40 years old and I am still trying to master this art! Therefore, before teaching your children the following, perhaps it is of more importance to ensure that you have mastered these skills.
3 Reasons Why Skillful Living from an Early Age is Important
- We live in a world that is changing constantly. We are currently experiencing a pandemic, for example! One needs strategy and skill to cope in such a
- Healthy habits take years to master and
- Skillful living results in good mental health. This helps you enjoy life and cope better with problems. Why not start young?
10 Strategies to Aid Skillful Living
Eating well is essential for a child’s healthy growth and development. It is also very important for a child’s mental well-being. If we are eating well, then our children should follow suit. The following article talks about KEY HEALTHY EATING HABITS.
It is of utmost importance to teach our children the necessity and value of exercise, especially in this age of SCREEN. If we can teach our children to exercise from an early age, it will help them immensely in their adulthood. Our children will stay on track if we stay on track! Here is an article encouraging and motivating us to stay on track.
Screens are everywhere! They are also the best and deceptively the cheapest babysitter in the world. I say deceptively because one has to pay for it in the long-run, often in the form of rehabilitation. We need to research this topic extremely carefully and adhere to our findings, before placing our children in front of a screen. Read this article, ‘MRIs show screen time linked to lower brain development in preschoolers‘ to find out more.
Core Beliefs: core beliefs are the thoughts and the assumptions that we have about ourselves and the world around us. We need to check our own core beliefs before working on the core beliefs of our children. We live according to these beliefs so they are of utmost importance. Fortunately, I realised the poor state of mine at the tender age of 26 (before children) and with intense cognitive behavioural therapy, I was able to rectify them. Read this article to find out more about your CORE BELIEFS and the role COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY plays in strengthening them.
Love your neighbour as yourself: Now that strong, healthy core beliefs have been rectified and resurrected, we need to love others as ourselves. This command is found many times in the Bible. To love another as oneself is not innate. You would know this if you have kids. Kids can be so cruel to one another. Adults can too. It is a lot more disguised and subtle (which is perhaps worse). I suppose this is why God made it as a command. To read more about this, click on this link.
Think before you speak: this is an extremely difficult skill to master as it is such a human default to speak first, before thinking. If one speaks before one thinks, one can get into big trouble. Relationships will suffer or even come to an end, a child will battle to make friends and he will have little confidence in himself if he does not learn this skill. Shirley Vandersteen, a in Psychology speaks more on this in the following article: think before you speak.
Cry out for discernment: The definition of discernment according to the dictionary is the ‘ability to judge well’. This action was recommended to humans by King Solomon, the wisest king that ever lived. I only learnt this skill in my adult existence and it has helped me tremendously. My life changed dramatically both in business and in pleasure. Oh, how I wished I had cried out for discernment early on in our lives! Let’s encourage our children to cry out for their own discernment.
Laughter: It is true! Laughter really is the best medicine! Scientists have proven that laughter lowers blood pressure, reduces stress and increases muscle flexion as well as the circulation of antibodies in the bloodstream. According to William James, we do not laugh because we are happy, we are happy because we laugh. If we would like happy children, we must therefore teach and encourage them to laugh. We also need to bear in mind, that emotions are incredibly contagious. This includes laughter.
Perseverance: Perseverance, according to the Parent Toolkit, is the ability to overcome challenges and the desire to continue to work toward a goal or task even when challenges are involved. Life, as we all know, is full of challenges and this little (actually big) skill called PERSEVERANCE will help your child immensely, as he begins to face the inevitable trials of life. Once again we need to check our own ability to persevere.
Think about your thinking: By thinking about ones thinking, one learns to be in control of their thought life and in turn has the ability to change their thoughts. This is a great video that explains the concept of thinking about your thinking.
Kath Denholm is a speech therapist who has worked in London, private practices in Cape Town and KZN and taught at Livingstone Remedial School for three years. She is the owner and founder of Little Genius Puppets, an online educational programme teaching young children to identify key information and take it to long-term memory. Visit her website for more information: www.geniusseries.com/memory-training-3.