Affirmations: The New Information For Your Child’s Brain
Your child has over 6000 thoughts daily. Many of those thoughts will be some form of self-talk. As a result, the way your child speaks to themselves will be instrumental in how they ultimately feel about themselves.
The power of affirmations can and should be used to ensure that your child has a positive dialogue with themselves. It is the starting point to a strong and healthy self-image, as well as building self-esteem. No matter the situation, if your child has utilized this tool long enough, they will feel secure enough to maintain a state of feeling good.
Affirming Their Strong Points
A great starting point to find affirmations that your child can use, is their own perceived strengths. When a child uses an affirmation they believe to be true about themselves, that affirmation carries great power. For example, if your child believes they are a friendly person, and they use the affirmation “I am friendly”, that will elicit a strong positive feeling within. When they begin to feel good, they will start to naturally create more affirmations that make them feel good.
Now think about it for a minute. When you child believes something to be true, they don’t require any convincing. As a result, they begin a snowball effect of feeling good, and begin to focus on more of the things they believe are positive about themselves. In turn, this begins to strengthen their confidence and self-esteem. They literally are affirming to themselves what they already know to be true.
Utilizing Growth Centric Affirmations
Once your child is already feeling good about themselves, it becomes easier to connect with them. As a result, this is a wonderful opportunity to have a conversation about things they want to do or be. Don’t let your beliefs on how plausible this goal might be get in the way, let the child express themselves naturally. Given that this is a goal, your child will already know this is something they will have to work towards.
This affords you the wonderful opportunity to start introducing affirmations that help your child develop the mindset that they can always grow and learn. You would start by asking them their goal. Then you would ask them why they think they can complete this goal. For example, you might help your child say they can achieve this goal, because “I am capable”. Incorporating affirmations that engrain within your child’s brain that they are not limited, but rather can continue to grow and develop, is important. This enables your child to have the confidence and strong self-image to preserver through any new challenges they may face.
Empower The Child To Cultivate New Beliefs
We know that with enough repetition, a thought can ultimately be engrained in subconscious part of your mind. Your brain will develop new neurological pathways. With repetition and practice, this part of your brain can get thicker and stronger. With that knowledge in mind, you can introduce new affirmations to your child, to help them develop new beliefs about themselves.
Say for example your child is not noticeably confident in their ability to read. You know that if they can over come their self-doubt, that they could develop this skill with enough time and practice. We also know that when a child is feeling good, they are more receptive to challenges. You might start out by having your child use a few affirmations on their strong points to help them achieve a state of feeling good. Then you could introduce a growth centric affirmation such as “I am able to try my best”. Now that your child will be feeling good, and believing in their ability to face challenges, you can introduce a new affirmation.
In this instance you would want to combine the growth centric affirmation with this specific skill, which is reading. You might prompt your child to say “I am ready to read this challenging book, because I know I am able to try my best”. Another example in this scenario would be to use “I am capable of reading this book, because I know I can always learn new things with enough practice.”
Once you have your child feeling good and knowing they can grow, then introducing new information becomes much easier. More importantly, however, it becomes more believable for your child and that is where the magic happens. Utilizing affirmations from a young age, will help the child believe in themselves. Doing this on a constant basis for a consistent duration, will lead to it becoming an automatic behavior. Naturally, your child will have programmed their mind and brain to believe they can do or be anything. How magical is that?!?!
Founder/CEO
OH-KS
Rachna Patel is the founder of OH-KS Corporation, a company that creates one-of-a-kind programs and materials, to help children ultimately become happy, healthy, confident, have a strong growth mindset, and so much more. To learn more about their latest products, you can visit their website at www.OH-KS.com
