Tips to Encourage Family Fun in Ottawa and Help Your Child Grow
Parents know their children best, and because of this, they are more likely to be the first ones to notice a particular talent or passion their child has. Because every child is different, these talents and passions must be nurtured to help children develop their self-esteem and their sense of self.
Creative learning and playing are important to a child’s development. And it’s also important to help children establish their sense of self through learning different skills and developing talents.
Here are tips on how to spot and encourage different fields of interest for your child, and the different ways in which you can support and challenge your child to grow and prosper.
How to Spot and Nurture A Child’s Passion and Talents
Accept and embrace your child for who they are. Each child is unique, so there’s no point in comparing your child to anyone else. Instead of grooming your child to become the next all-star athlete or Bach, sit back and let them naturally gravitate toward their own interests.
Keep an eye out for any clues to what their interests might be. What do they spend most of their free time doing? Let them be kids and enjoy unstructured play time. This time allows kids to tap into their imaginations and explore what interests them most.
Once you have an idea of what interests your child has, find ways to nourish these interests—e.g., buying art supplies or signing up your child up for a class.
Help Your Child Learn to Overcome Challenges And Take Initiative
Your child might want to give up on an activity if it is too challenging, or if they don’t enjoy it anymore. While you should help your kids overcome obstacles, don’t force them to continue something that they’ve lost interest in. Kids’ interests can change over time, and they may not discover their passions until they are older.
Tips to Help Your Kids Take Initiative
The ability to take initiative is a skill developed with internal rewards, such as autonomy, dignity, creativity, and helping others. It is also developed through activities that help shape kids’ futures.
So let kids choose their activities. And let them focus on a few activities over a longer period of time instead of many activities at once.
Let them solve their problems on their own. And when your child whines about an activity, use this opportunity to find out what they care about. If your child falls, encourage them to get back on their feet because you believe in them.
Be a coach and a role model. Show them how you accomplish tasks but don’t do things for them if they can do these tasks themselves.
Helping Kids Build Their Confidence through Learning Different Skills
Your child’s confidence comes from your love and support, feeling secure, and developing competence—i.e., being good at things. It’s important to teach kids that challenges are a part of life and no one is perfect. So perfect performance is not expected, especially when learning new skills. The saying, “Practice makes perfect,” refers to failing many times until a new skill is learned.
As your child learns and fails, keep supporting them with unconditional love and emotional support. Provide appropriate praise for the effort they made, but don’t overpraise them.
Coach instead of control—do things with your kids instead of for them. Show them how to do things so they can learn and build confidence in their abilities. For example, Kids Kingdom’s daycare uses the “learning-by-doing” approach for teaching kids, empowering them, and getting them excited about learning.
Let kids try new skills at the youngest age that is appropriate—stand by for encouragement and help/catch them if they fall. Let them take healthy risks and make their own (age-appropriate) choices.
Allow your child to help around the house. Simple household chores can make kids feel competent and valuable like they are contributing to the house.
Encourage your children to take on tasks they show interest in. Make sure they complete the tasks so they can enjoy a sense of accomplishment.
Support them as they tackle manageable challenges—not challenges that set them up for failure. Coach and assist them while they learn something new. This will help give them the confidence they need to try something new on their own.
Creativity as A Key To Future Success
Art, dance, drama, and music activities help children develop creativity. And in turn, this creativity promotes development in key areas that are crucial for a child’s success throughout their lives.
Cognitive Development
Through various art forms, children learn how to pay attention and focus on tasks, use their imagination, innovate, explore, and problem solve, and even develop math skills.
Emotional Development
Creative expression encourages kids to develop ways to express emotions and work through these emotions, e.g., painting something that depicts a child’s emotions—happy, sad, angry. Or listening to music and asking your child how the music makes them feel.
Social Development
Being creative in childhood often involves socializing—such as with theatre, singing, dancing, or putting on a puppet show. These activities help kids learn to pay attention to others, take turns, cooperate, contribute, and get along well with others.
Physical Development
Dance, theatre, and large mural paintings and construction projects develop gross motor skills. While music and fine art—such as drawing and painting—promotes fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.
Language and Literacy Development
The arts help kids develop their vocabularies through conversations about their creative endeavours. Reading, painting, and drawing help kids associate images with words.
The Importance Of Extracurricular Activities To Help Children Learn More About Themselves And Gain Confidence
There are many reasons why it’s important to enroll children in extracurricular activities.
Extracurricular activities:
- Teach time management skills and how to prioritize commitments. These skills will help kids manage stress throughout their lives;
- Give kids life experience
- Allow kids to explore and find their passions. And once a kid finds something they enjoy doing, this will further boost their confidence and self-esteem;
- Help kids learn teamwork skills, which help to boost confidence in social settings; and
- Teach children to set goals and be motivated to achieve goals, which is beneficial throughout life.
Along with providing family fun with indoor play, Kids Kingdom has an early childhood education center, preschool, and summer camps for kids. These services promote creativity, encourage kids to discover their passions, and support children’s cognitive, emotional, and physical needs. We also ensure competency, safety, security, and quality in all our services, so kids have the freedom to learn and grow while having fun in a safe and nurturing environment.