7 Things Mentally Strong Kids do and How as Parents we can help them

7 Things Mentally Strong Kids do and How as Parents we can help them.            

As a Child Personality Development and Mind Open Coach, one of the most common questions parents ask me is: What are the key strengths I should be teaching my kids?

Life will keep throwing challenges at you, it’s a person’s mental strength that helps overcome any challenge. If your mental hygiene is in place any battle can be won.

I always tell my kids the famous LAO TZU Quote.

Watch your Thoughts    
They Become your Belief’s        

Watch your Belief’s       
They Become Your Actions

Watch You Actions         
They Become your Habits           

Watch your Habits         
They Become your Character

Watch your Character   
It Becomes Your Destiny.

The Key to your Success is in your Thoughts, as Thoughts reverberate. Mental strength requires you to pay attention to these three things the way you THINK (Thinking Big), FEEL (Always Feeling Good) and ACT (Acting Brave) helps us grow our mental muscles. A book which I read quotes BRAIN is a MUSCLE. Of course, it takes practice, patience and constant reinforcement to get to a point where you’ll do these things naturally.

With support and proper guidance kids can successfully achieve it over time. Here are seven things mentally strong kids always do, and how as parents you can help your kids get there if they haven’t already.

 

1. EMPOWER THEM

For E.g. If your kid says, “My best friend got a higher score in the quiz, which makes me feel bad about myself,” they’re essentially giving someone else the power over their emotions. Here as a parent our role is to listen to them, calm them down and help them with planting a belief that you can always do better, and you will always get ample of chances.

On the other hand kids who feel empowered don’t depend on other people to feel good. They choose, for example, to be in a bright mood even when someone else is having a bad day or tries to take their anger out on them. They will always “RESPOND” and never “RE-ACT”

Create empowering phrases: Work with your kid to come up with phrases that they can repeat to themselves. Use words that show they are in charge of how they think, feel and behave — regardless of how those around them are doing.

This will help drain out the negative dialect which is running in their head that try to convince them they lack the potential to succeed. The most effective empowering phrases are short and easy to remember: I call them Sutra’s

“I will always do my best.”

“I am confident.”

“I’m good enough.”

“I am happy today.”

“I Love myself and Others”

You can tell them to write in their own words, as when they write in their own words, they will never forget and it comes directly from their GENNIE (Sub Conscious Mind).

These small little catchy phrases will always help your child to switch to a better mood and help them believe that best is yet to come.

2. CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT THING – ADAPT IT

Adapting to change is the most toughest for any child, whether it’s moving to a new school or house, or not being able to play with friends during the pandemic. It makes them think and worry that what’s happening around might make their life worse. Kids are very tender and need lot of compassion from their parents. As parents our job is to give them the confidence that whatever changes, all changes are for good. (It could be a bit tricky, but handling with a proper presence of mind can definitely help them and you as well)

On the other hand mentally strong kids understand that change can help them grow into an even stronger person, even though it might not feel that way at first, these types of kids have a very different level of Maturity. They adapt to change with utmost ease.

Unfortunately, most of us don’t spend enough time thinking about how we feel. In fact, even as adults, we tend to put more energy into fighting our emotions. The more we fight our emotions the more they tend to take over us.

So when your kid is faces a major change, sit with them and have them talk elaborately about how they’re feeling. Name your emotions: Change feels uncomfortable, but more importantly, help them find — and define — the right words to describe it (e.g., sad, happy, frustrated, nervous, eager). Just putting a name to your feelings can decrease the sting of these emotions. Instill

 

3. TEACH THEM TO SAY NO

“NEVER SAY YES WHEN YOU WANT TO SAY NO” Everyone struggles to speak up, say no, or express their feelings once in a while. But depending on the situation, choosing not to say yes makes you stronger.

Kids often find it difficult to say no because it can feels awkward and weird. By finding the courage to do it more often, however, they’ll find that it gets easier over time. It also reduces the stress of having to commit to things they don’t want to do. (Again this is a tricky situation, as they will find out reasons to say no to everything e.g. studies, the best way is to make them understand the difference between right and wrong and than say no to things that they should say no to)

The “GIVE UP” test: When your kid faces with a decision to say yes or no, ask them what they will have to give up if they say yes. For example, if a friend invite’s him/her for a play date at their place and the time is meant to be spent on important task such as “STUDIES”

Ask them: “Are you willing to give that thing up?” If they decide they don’t want to, then say NO. If they decide they don’t mind, then they can go ahead and say YES, but remind them of the task which needs more importance, still if they are will to say yes, than please support them with a yes(at times its needed, but make sure its not cultivated into an habit, remember to be an AUTHORATIVE PARENT), taking a commitment to fulfil the task at a later time during that day itself.

The best way to turn down to an invite has to be very humble and polite manner and its needs courage.

 “I won’t be able to make it, please you guys carry on” (You don’t always need to offer a reason.)

“Thank you so much for inviting me, but I’ve got other important task to complete.”

“I’ll have to check with parents and get back to you.” (Buying Time, to think about it.)

“I appreciate you asking me, but today seems to be a bit difficult for me to come”

4. TEACH THEM TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR OWN ACTIONS.

Before we teach them to take the responsibility of their own actions, we as adults have to do the same, as kids always learn and imitate their own parents.

Mistakes are very common and often in kids, and we did to in our childhood too. Kids are often tempted to hide their mistakes because they don’t want to get in trouble. Maybe they forgot to do their homework or accidentally broke an expensive vase. (I always encourage kids to do Mistakes as they learn from it. Not to repeat the same ones again and again, but doing new mistakes every time, this also removes FEAR OF FAILURE)

Owning your mistakes helps you build character. Kids who are brave enough to practice this recognize what they did wrong, and mentally prepare themselves to fully admit to what they did. Admitting the mistakes eliminates of making stories and giving reasons, it also simplifies the process of rectifying it and move on. If you learn to admit your mistake at an early stage of life, the fortune will all be yours, as when they turn adults the scope of making mistakes reduces drastically.

Create an environment for SUCCESS: If you know your kid is disorganized, they probably have a hard time remembering all their assignments. Or if their room is filled with tons of junk treats, they might not be able to resist eating too much sugar and junk. Gratifying your taste bud’s is good till it’s just gratification, but if it turns out to be hampering your mental health (Which it does over the period of time), than it will take a toll on you.

When your child makes a mistake, help them be mindful to change their environment in a way that will prevent them from making the same mistake again. Help them organize themselves in a way that things become simple and their time gets saved.

For example, they can do their assignments as soon as they receive them, or remove all junkie snacks so they are not within easy reach.

5. CELBRATING OTHERS SUCCESS RATHER BEING ENVIOUS

It is quite normal for kids to feel envious when their friends get a new toy or go on an exotic vacation, or even when the other team wins the game.

Make them aware that by feeling jealous it will only hurt them. Encourage your kids to cheer and be part of other people success too.

Mentally strong kids are supportive of their peers, and they focus on performing their best without worrying about how everyone else is doing. They always enjoy the process and never worry about the result.

“ACT” like the person you want to be: Have your kid come up with a list of traits they admire. May be they can have a real life “HERO” as their role model or maybe they want to be more confident like their sister, or optimistic like their teacher. Encourage them to act as if they already possess those traits.

This doesn’t mean they should be someone they’re not. It simply means putting their best foot forward. When we feel good about ourselves, it’s easier to celebrate other people’s successes.

They become more and more optimistic by enjoying the process of celebrating the success.

6. TRY AGAIN IF YOU FAIL (FAILURE IS PART AND PARCEL OF LIFE)

Either you learn or you win, you never fail. Failure hurts — it can feel embarrassing, disappointing and frustrating. But the most successful people reached their goals by failing along the way.

Kids who always do well later in their life, had channelized their focus on what went wrong and how they could have fixed it. They have growth mindsets or rather I would say their mind is always open (MINDOPEN) that help them turn failures into positive learning experiences.

Remember successful people who failed miserably in their life. Experts have found out that kids that actually perform better when they learn that many success stories began with miserable failure.

The next time your kid feels low because they feel they’ve failed at something, support and educate them about people who made similar mistakes, like Thomas Alva Edison. Edison had 10000 failures before he invented the light bulb, in addition to many other great things. But he also had more than 1,000 inventions that didn’t work.

This will boost your child’s confidence, and they’ll know that one poor grade, doesn’t mean they’re bad at studies. There are ways and means, there are lot of techniques available to learn things faster.

7. PERSISTENCE IS THE KEY

Nothing is the world can take the place of PERSISTENCE, when it takes a while to reach a goal, or when you don’t feel like putting in the hard work to succeed, your brain might try to convince you to give up.

Kids who are mentally strong will always continue to persist to work hard even when they don’t feel like it. This is their key of success and eventually they discover that they are stronger than they initially thought.

Write a letter: Have your kid write a letter — filled with words of kindness and encouragement — to themselves. Even you can tell them to listen to powerful positive affirmations in an audio form.

It can be a long or a short note in simple words of their own that says “I know things are not happening the way I wanted it to be, but you can do this because you have achieved much more challenging goals before. And you can do it again.”

Each time they feel low or feel tempted to give up, tell them to go back to that letter or listen to audios. It will motivate them to again push forward and persist.

A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn into a glorious success.

Jatin Asher
NLP Life Coach
Brainography Expert Consultant
Kids Coaching Specialist
+91-9833156365 / 8355881872