Building Resilience in Children - Courage

This post will continue the discussion on building resilience in children focusing this time on the element of courage.

The Definition of Courage
Webster defines courage as "the ability to conquer fear or anxiety."  I love that Webster uses the word "conquer" in this definition.  Courage is not the absence of fear or anxiety.  It is the ability to conquer our fears and anxieties.  This involves action on the part of the child not just a passive acceptance.  It is not enough to know about one's fears and anxieties.  We must actively work to conquer those fears and anxieties.

How to Build Courage
In our society we do a very good job of helping people to identify their fears.  However, identifying fears does not build courage.  It is only step one.  Once a fear has been identified, that fear must be actively faced on a consistent basis.  There are two very important words in the previous sentence - "actively" and "consistent."  Those are the next two steps in building courage in anyone.  People never conquer anything in a passive manner.  Change takes action.  For example, if a person has a fear of heights, in order to conquer that fear they must do actions that involve heights.  It does not have to be drastic and can even be incremental, but if they never face the fear, the fear remains.  Step three involves consistency.  Taking action only once does not accomplish much at all.  For example, I was involved in a car wreck about a year ago.  After that I was terrified of driving around big trucks.  ( I was rear-ended by a semi.)  I had to drive on the interstate around big trucks for 6 months before I could do so without anxiety.  The first couple of times required employing every stress-relieving tactic I knew.  It is not easy to drive when you are the verge of a panic attack, but if I had never gotten back out there, that situation could have crippled me emotionally for the rest of my life.  It also took much more than one time to accomplish conquering my fear.  Children need for us to show them how to conquer their fears not just make the situations go away.  We are crippling our children emotionally by not putting them in situations where their fears can be faced.  As I said, it does not have to be drastic and should be incremental with children, but it needs to be done.

How to Sabotage Courage
Is it possible to sabotage courage in our children?  One only has to look at the twenty-something population to see that it is VERY possible to sabotage courage in children.  The millenial generation is the first generation to almost fully be parented by helicopter parents and it shows immensely.  These now adults were sheltered from their fears and almost anything unpleasant, and they come completely unglued when they have to face anything unpleasant let alone scary.  Heard of "safe spaces" anyone?  Risk scares these adults to the point of needing medication.  This is ridiculous.  Unfortunately for these poor millenials they will have to face their fears eventually or be completely incapable of "adulting" anytime soon.  It is truly unfair what we have done to them.  Learning to overcome fears as an adult is 1000 times harder than learning to do it as a child.  Please, hear what I am saying.  STOP sheltering children from unpleasant experiences.  MAKE children work through their own difficulties.  BACK OFF helicopter parents before you completely ruin another entire generation.

Conclusion
These posts deal with resilience, which is the ability to bounce-back or adapt in a difficult situation.  Courage plays a pivotal role in resilience.  Early childhood people, please teach the next generation to face their fears not hide from them.  Teach them to take reasonable risks.  Help them understand that adversity requires a person to work through it not hide from it.  The real world will not provide "safe spaces" for these children when they grow up.  You are doing them the largest disservice in the world by providing this to them now.  Please, make building resilience a much higher priority than a lot of the other cultural and behavioral milestones we place so much emphasis on.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!! https://linktr.ee/natawade

 

Cognitive Development for 4 to 5 year olds - Early Literacy (Part 5)

This post will begin the discussion of the component - Print Awareness.  Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Developmental Standards (TN-ELDS).

The first learning expectation is:  Understands concept of spoken and written word and that alphabet letters have individual names.  The performance indicator for this one is:  Recognizes printed name and those of siblings or playmates; identifies some of the letters in own name; routinely puts "name" on his products.  Children that are in an environment where their names are used deliberately and often will conquer this particular performance indicator easily.  The name of the child must be used and not just posted.  Unless the printed word is given meaning to a child this age, it will simply be decoration.  Also, the teaching of the letters will not happen unless a teacher or adult points out to the child the name of each letter while pointing at it at the same time.  Direct instruction is necessary for children to learn the names of letters, numbers, colors, etc.  If you rely on children picking up this information informally, it will take 10 times longer for them to learn.

The next learning expectation is:  Shows interest in purposeful writing.  The performance indicator for this one is:  "Writes" messages as part of play activities; asks for help to make a list of things or write a not to someone special.  Only children that have had writing modeled for them will conquer this particular performance indicator.  If the adults in the child's life never model writing, the child will not exhibit these behaviors.  It is extremely important that the children in your life witness you writing lists and writing other materials.  They need to understand that writing is an important aspect of your life.  It is only when they see this that they will show an interest in "writing" on their own.

The next learning expectation is:  Shows good understanding of conventions of print.  The performance indicator for this one is:  Uses book reading conventions:  "reading" front to back, turning 1 page at a time, looking from top to the bottom of the page, pointing left to right.  Conquering this particular performance indicator will very much depend on the child's exposure to books.  An adult will have to model some of the parts of this indicator such as looking from top to bottom and pointing left to right.  Unless an adult has followed the text with his/her finger while they read to the child, the child will not pick that up from book exposure.  Some children will not pick up these points until they begin the reading process.  Reading front to back and turning 1 page at a time can be picked up from simple book reading exposure.  I have not found it necessary for children to know the top to bottom and left to right rules to learn to read.  Many children pick that up as they learn rather than before they learn.  This is especially true for those children that learn through the phonics method rather than whole language.  The act of sounding out words left to right usually trains the children on the left to right aspect of reading before they hit sentences.  Those children that learn to read by sight do not necessarily pick up the left to right aspect.  Therefore, children that will learn to read using the whole language method should learn the top to bottom and left to right aspects before learning to read.

Now we move on to the next learning expectation:  Demonstrates good word awareness, calls attention to print in the environment and recognizes some common words.  The performance indicator for this one is:  Identifies familiar words in books and in environment.  Again, this one does not happen magically or just because you read to the children.  Words must be given meaning for them to become anything but decorations to 4 year old children.  When children in preschool settings have to use names to claim centers or other such activities, they will begin to recognize not just their name but their friends names as well.  If other simple words are included in activities throughout the day in such a way that the children have to distinguish one from another, they will conquer this performance indicator.  Simply labeling everything in your environment will not help children learn to recognize words.

The last learning expectation for this post is:  Routinely engages in purposeful reading and writing. The performance indicator for this one is:  Includes reading and writing activities in dramatic play; initiates writing notes to people; shows pride in writing attempts.  Only children that have adults in their life that model writing will conquer this performance indicator.  Even some children that do have adults that model will not show an interest in "writing" at four years old.  It takes some children longer to show an interest in reading and writing than other children, and it simply has to do with their personality.  Usually those children would rather tinker with materials than listen to stories or do writing activities.  Do not give up on these children.  You need to model for them but understand it may take longer to kick in.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!!! https://linktr.ee/natawade