Hope In Children
Hope in children is one of the most important values they can develop. This means that the little ones never lose faith and that they do not get carried away by discouragement when things do not go as they should.
Children who have hope are happier and more satisfied with life. They even achieve better academic results and maintain better social relationships. In contrast, children lacking this feeling do not try to achieve their goals, have bad relationships, and feel powerless.
Psychologists say that a child has hope when he thinks he can find ways to achieve his goals. We tell you some details to get the most out of it.
How to promote hope in children?
If you want to instill hope in children, you should consider the following tips:
1.- Build a future focus
To promote hope in children, it is good to ask them what they are hoping to achieve and how they plan to achieve it. In this sense, it is recommended that you talk with your child about how he imagines himself in the future, in order to know what he wants to achieve and why.
You have to make him imagine how far he can go to see the real potential he has.
2.- Work the plans with the child
When your child says, “I want to be a marine biologist,” you should encourage him and then ask, “What do you need to do to get there?” It is good that you discuss the paths, the options and the possibilities. Thinking about the future is essential to foster the hope of the little one.
3.- Ask him questions
When your child is stuck, instead of providing the solution, you should ask him what are the next steps to take and when was the last time he managed to overcome a situation of this type.
These questions promote a sense of efficacy and encourage the youngster to take action. Instead of having the child entrust all the solutions to his parents, he will learn to trust himself, his ingenuity and his initiative.
To do this, you can remember those times when you have been successful in the past and use them to build the hope that will ensure that you can succeed again.
4.- Boost your stimulation
You should encourage children to ask questions, to be curious to learn and interested in discovering. Teaching them to experiment and always go further is good for exploring their limits, as well as being really useful and appropriate.
As a mother, you must convey to the child everything that you really want him to learn through gestures, words and behaviors.
5.- It favors their autonomy
Autonomy is always important in the child’s life. Excessive protection can cause the child to overestimate hope, clinging to it in an unhealthy way.
However, if you are free to experiment, control, and even get frustrated by stepping outside your comfort zone, your development will be much more appropriate.
6.- Practice active listening
The best way to instill any value in children is through active listening. You must make your child understood and respected.
In this way, you will feel free to engage in a dialogue in which you can clearly explain everything that is inside you. In addition, it will help you understand, internalize and make your own critical judgments.
7.- Promote their generosity
Generosity is a wonderful value that will instill in your child notions of nobility and empathy, as well as being the best way for him to understand and obtain rewards. To promote hope in children, the ideal way is to teach them to give without expecting anything in return.
The little ones should not do to others what they do not like to be done to them. With this attitude, hope will rarely turn to naivety.
8.- Encourage creation
Finally, if you want to transmit values such as hope, it is best to form a creative space in which the information received and transmitted is useful, open to interpretation and full of knowledge.
Infuse hope in a practical way
Once you have created the adequate understanding space for the little one to assume values such as hope, it is time to put everything learned into practice. To make this possible, you can carry out activities such as:
- Use positive reinforcement when the child acts correctly.
- Discuss to establish norms to be respected.
- Instill a love for reading stories or fables.
- Combine experimentation with the visual so that the child can manipulate, but also observe.
- Use examples without differentiating responsibilities among equals, using the correct language and always respecting the idiosyncrasies of each personality.
Therefore, it is important to instill hope in children because it has many benefits. Remember that your mission as a mother is to promote it, since it is a value that your child should never lose.
