How To Cultivate Positive Mindset In Children?

Positivity doesn’t always refer to an ever smiling face and looking cheerful all the time. It is more about one’s overall perspective towards life and the tendency to focus on all that is good life offers. Ingraining the right thoughts in children is not about telling them to be constantly happy with a pretentious veil of perfection while ignoring anything that is negative or unpleasant in their life. Positivity is about incorporating both the positive and negative into one’s perspective and choosing to still be optimistic.

Cultivating positivity in young minds is about making them realise that they cannot always control the circumstances life throws at them or they cannot always control the thoughts that pop into their head, but they can always choose how to react to them.

There are many characteristics associated with a positive mindset. Some of them are mentioned below:

Optimism: the willingness to make an effort and take a chance instead of assuming one’s efforts won’t pay off.

Acceptance: acknowledging that things don’t always turn out how one wants them to.

Resilience: bouncing back from adversity and failure instead of giving up.

Gratitude: actively and consciously appreciating the blessings in one’s life.

Focus /Mindfulness: Practicing conscious awareness enhances the ability to focus.

Integrity: the trait of being honorable, righteous, and straightforward, instead of being deceitful and selfish to sail through life.

To make children become optimistic, they have to be taught that positive beliefs result in a more positive consequence, which then leads to a more positive outlook in life.

There are different activities to help children develop a positive mindset.

If you’re a teacher, parent, coach, or anyone who interacts with kids, you may try these activities in order to develop a positive mindset in your child/ren:

Guided Meditation: Guided meditation practices nurture a child’s innate potential for happiness and awareness.This is done by mentally sending goodwill, kindness, and warmth towards others by silently repeating a series of positive phrases.

Teaching children the importance of helping others: Encourage the child to help others, whether that takes the form of assisting an elderly stranger with carrying their belongings or helping a friend with homework.

Teaching Journaling: Have the child create and write in an “Positive Journal.” Tell them to write down any sights or moments from their daily life that they find beautiful, extraordinary, awesome, or just wonderful.

Teaching positive affirmation: Encourage the child to set goals, visualise their path forward, and plan for obstacles before they come face-to-face with them. Guide the child to have affirmations like I am kind, I am enough, I am loving it or I am good.

Spending quality time with children: Share your own positive experiences with the child. Laugh with the child, hug the child and set aside quality time to simply be with the child.

Encouraging the child about their strength/s: Identify the child’s strengths and encourage the child to put them to good use and develop them further with productive and fun activities.

Discussing Success of the day with children: Another activity that can help children develop and maintain a positive mindset is “Success of the Day” activity, in which children are encouraged to talk about a success they had that day, like helping someone, standing up for a peer, finishing a project, committing a random act of kindness etc.

Building a positive framework for a child is not about telling them to be happy just to pretend to be so. Positivity is making an investment in oneself and commitment to constantly looking at the brighter side of life.While it is normal to feel bogged down or think pessimistically at times, choosing to respond to life’s circumstances with optimism, resilience, and gratitude trains the human mind to cope with changes and challenges with much ease.

Taking these factors into consideration, Wellsprings Academy has prepared its curriculum that lays emphasis on the holistic development of children. Positivity being one of the prime factors behind determining one’s success in life, the school strives to include practices, tools and activities that aid a child’s positive growth and upliftment alongside their academics. To know more about our approach towards holistic learning, please explore our curriculum pages on the website.

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