How to Encourage Your Kids to Look on the Bright Side of Things
“No matter how bad things get. Something good is out there, over the horizon.”– said Green Lantern, the American superhero character created by DC. Indeed, life throws lemons at us at random times. However, it is up to us how we turn those lemons into lemonade. In other terms, it means looking for positives in every circumstance.
You might not believe but the ability to look at the positives amid any situation is a crucial skillset that gives the confidence to keep going amid even the most difficult situations. It gives rise to the ability to keep faith in the good and cope with the challenges. This is why at Excelsior American School, positioned among the best schools in Gurgaon, we firmly believe it is rather important to show or explain to kids how to look at the bright side of things in every situation.
So, in this article today, we are sharing with you a few easy and worth-it ways you can encourage your kids to look at the bright side in every circumstance while leaving past the negatives.
- Morning and Night Prayers
Children must be taught to inculcate a routine of thanking God at the end of the day, before sleeping, for all the moments and experiences he gave us during the day. Be it the good and joyful moments or the bad and sour ones. They must know to acknowledge and thank life as it is by saying, ‘Whatever the God does, he does it for our good.’ A similar prayer should also be done in the morning before starting our day’s routine.
- One Optimism in One Obstacle
Teach kids to try and find at least one optimistic point in each obstacle they face. Tell them to establish the practice of searching for that single, tiny ray of hope in every bad experience they encounter. For example, ask kids to think and search for any good quality or positive trait of that friend with whom they had a big fight yesterday. Make them remember the times when that friend helped them in their hour of need.
- Parents – The Example Setters & Kids – The Copycats
You are being watched; you are being followed and imitated. As a parent, one must know that your kids are basically your mirror images only. They love to replicate your actions, reactions, practices, and habits. Being in tender age, they don’t know the do’s and dont’s, but being born imitators, what they surely know is to copy what they see or hear. Hence, as their parents, their role models, it becomes your moral obligation to display and exhibit such behaviour before them, which is precisely what you expect from them!
- Work on Your Feelings
It is always on us to choose which way to go in every situation. Tell your kids that either we can sit sad, holding the grievances and grudges, or let it go and move ahead, looking towards another brighter, shinier day. Teach them to choose forgiveness over punishment, love over hatred, and positivity over pessimism.
- Teach Them to Embrace Failures and Rise Over Them
Teach kids that failures do occur and can happen to anyone, anytime. However, do not forget to tell them that it’s not a big deal! Tell them, show them that you understand their disappointment. As a parent, you must realize that you cannot be with them and protect them from failures always. But acknowledgment will help them paddle and dabble through the rough course of their lives.
- Leave All the Fuss for the Nonce
Sometimes ‘not thinking’ does the magic. Leave the problem at hand just as it is for a while. Stop over-thinking or thinking at all. The tactic works because this interval rejuvenates us, and once we face the problem again after a gap of a while, we see it from a different perspective altogether. We are recharged and so can think of a solution totally fresh.
- The Glass is Half Full
An optimist views even the hassles as opportunities to learn. Even in jeopardized circumstances, they feel themselves to be luckier in the way that they got to experience more situations as compared to the ones who got lucky in the first go. Hence, teach your kids to count their blessings, not blights!
- Age is Not a Bar
Children can sometimes dive deep into a problem and engross themselves wholly in it. They might see it as the end of the world for them! At such a point, it becomes your responsibility to share with them the fact that difficult situations come in everyone’s life. The crisis will never knock on the door to announce its arrival. It will just barge in without considering one’s age.
Moving closer to the end of the blog, we, at the Excelsior American School, positioned among the best international schools in Gurgaon, would like to share with you all a famous quote by the greatest of all, Sir Nelson Mandela. In his very first speech when he came out after spending 27 years in prison, he said, “As I walked out the door towards the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave bitterness behind and take the path to forgiveness, I would still be in prison.”
Yes, we understand that cultivating an optimistic outlook would not be an easy pathway to take, but we also know that it is achievable with patience and practice. After all, an abode filled with love and a school with understanding mentors together can help the little ones navigate through any of the risqué scenarios of life.
