Ep #63: Raising Kids with an Unwavering Sense of Self

Welcome to the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast where moms and teachers come to learn all about kids’ brains, how they work, how they learn, how they grow and simple tips and tricks for raising the most resilient, kind, smart, compassionate kids we can. All while having lots of grace and compassion for ourselves because you know what? We all really need and deserve that too. I am your host, Amy Nielson. Let’s get ready to start the show.

I had a really interesting conversation recently with a mental health expert and we were discussing this idea called a lack of proprioception. So proprioception is kind of like a child’s understanding of themselves in space, how their body engages in space and how that works. And so we were talking about that. And then we talked about it in a more mental sense. And this idea that is it possible sometimes for a child to have a lack of proprioception, a lack of understanding of where they are in a non-physical space? How do they belong in the world? Do they feel like they fit here? Do they know who they are?

And it led me kind of into this really interesting idea of how do we help children build a sense of self? And why does that even matter? Well, let’s talk about it. And one of the articles that I researched as I was kind of studying more about this was an article called help for early years providers, provided by the government in the UK. So we’ll drop a link for that, so you have access to that, but just wanted to kind of share some of the stuff I’ve been learning with you because it’s pretty fascinating and really important.

So babies kind of develop a sense of proprioception by moving their body around through space and exploring the objects around them. And they similarly develop a sense of self by interacting with others and exploring their bodies and the objects around them. And what’s so interesting is human behavior is motivated by a desire to belong and find a place in a group and families, in all of these places, in our schools.

And so one of the challenges is, if you don’t feel like you fit. And I remember reading a really interesting quote in a book from Brené Brown. And she talks about this concept of you can never belong in a group until you belong to yourself. And this has just stuck with me because it was so powerful. You can never belong in a group, in any kind group until you belong to yourself. So what does that mean? And what is this sense of self that we have to have because it’s critical to belong. It’s one of our basic needs is belonging.

And we’re not going to be able to feel that and really experience true belonging in a group until we can belong to ourselves. If that’s not enough to convince you how important a sense of self is, hear this. Children who have a sense of self are able to challenge themselves. That’s kind of important. This helps them become independent. Do we want our kids to be able to be independent? Yes, we do, oh my goodness, yes.

If children don’t feel a sense of security, they may not be able to settle into their environment and they might struggle to learn and develop, not feeling safe. Safety becomes the primary thing that their brain focuses on, it’s key, it comes first. And it might interfere with their ability to learn and develop if they’re in the space where they’re constantly trying to develop safety. So how do we help them do that? We’re going to talk about how to respond to children, how to understand their feelings, and how to help them develop a sense of self.

Today we’re going to do five basically key things that we do in practice to help a child develop a sense of self. And I’ll share a couple of activity ideas with you and it’s going to be awesome.

So number one, in practice, how do we help children develop a sense of self now that we know how important it is? So children need to explore on their own. So this is number one, let children explore on their own. They need potential to discover new things, develop their knowledge and interests. So how do we support that? We know that children need to be able to explore their own potential and discover new things. So how do we support that? Well, one of the best ways we can do that is offer a wide selection of activities and specifically providing activities around their specific interests.

So I think it’s good to give them exposure to new ideas, they can develop new interests because we all know that happens. We create knowledge gaps by exposing them to new things and then they suddenly become very interested in new things they were interested in before.

My son read an article on Petra in school and came home and was obsessed with it. He’s still obsessed with Petra. We’re going to go someday. He knew that because he recognized a knowledge gap because of exposure. But he doesn’t normally just study ancient history and ancient architecture and all of those things. He’s more into computers and Minecraft and other various things. So I can provide him activities in his range right now. He just built his first computer. He’s 11 years old. He and his buddy built a computer together.

And I try to give him opportunities to work in that space and then give him exposure to new and other ideas. So we want to give them space and offer a wide selection of activities.

Okay, number two is encourage children at home or in school to make choices. Oh my goodness, we’re encouraging children to make choices. Sometimes it’s really easy to just, we already know what we think is the best option for them to do. And we just want to tell them so we can get through it faster and get to the other side. But what we’re really trying to help children develop is the ability to make choices on their own because we don’t want to have to go with them everywhere they go for the rest of their life and make all their choices for them.

We want them to have that sense of self and the independence to be able to do that on their own. So we are growing choice makers, that’s what we’re doing. And so we have to give them practice to do that at a developmentally appropriate level. So one of the things I thought was very interesting about this as we’re trying to help children develop a sense of self is giving them some autonomy as well. This is one thing I’ve been practicing.

So this idea of when you’re going and you’re going to help a child and they need to get up in their chair or something like that and you know they need help, they can’t do it on their own. You ask their permission first. “Would you like some help getting into your chair?” And you know they need it, but instead of just picking them up and taking away their choice, you give them the ability to speak.

One of the things I’ve been doing with my children, I’m a hugger. I’m such a hugger, you guys, and when my kid is sad, I just want to hug them and fix it and make it all better. And I think part of the reason I want to do that is because I want to make myself feel better and I don’t know, hugging them makes me feel better because it’s a comfort thing for me. But what I’ve learned is that not all of my children want to hug when they’re sad. And so one of the things I’ve tried to really focus on and pay attention to is, is that what they need? Is that what they want? And give them permission to say no.

And so if they’re really sad and I can tell they’re upset and distraught and I say, “Do you want a hug or is there another way I can support you right now?” And sometimes they want a hug and I love it because I love hugging, but sometimes they don’t. And sometimes they just need me to sit by them and I can say, “Okay, and I’ll just sit over here. I’m here with you. You’re not alone. You can work through this, and I’ll just be here with you. And I’ll sit in the discomfort with you. I’ll sit here in the sadness with you and I’ll support you while you’re sad. And if you decide you need something else, if you decide you need a hug, I’m there for you.”

But I’m giving them choice. There’s lots of ways to practice this one. So some other ideas, you can ask them, “Are you ready for a snack?” Give them a choice. Are you ready for a snack or would you like five more minutes? Are you ready to be done right now or would you like five more minutes?” And you can give them choices that are both acceptable to you, so plan ahead a little bit and give them two options that are both acceptable to you. But then allow them to have some autonomy and a sense of choice and the ability to just practice choosing and feel like they have a sense of self and ownership.

Okay, this next one, this one can be hard sometimes. So we’re letting them explore and having the potential to discover. We’re encouraging children to make choices. Number three is, be patient and attentive. Anyone ever struggled with being patient before? Never. We would never do that. Oh, wait. So sometimes it can be hard to be patient when a child is doing something and they’re struggling, they’re struggling to do the thing or in our mind, they’re not doing it right.

Have you ever had that happen? They’re trying to tie their shoe, you’re in a really big hurry to go somewhere and they’re not doing it right. And you’re like, “Just let me just, I just want to fix it. I just want to do it.” So here’s the thing, a couple of things. First of all, when we start getting all stressed and panicked and whatever, that’s contagious, they feel that. And it teaches them to kind of panic and stress and be really uncomfortable when things don’t go well.

Now, here’s a thing that you probably already know, but it’s healthy to remember sometimes, and that is that things aren’t always going to go well in your child’s life. And the best way to prepare them for that is not preparing them to be okay and to know how to handle every single situation and to never have anything go wrong because that’s not possible. So how do we arm our children to be okay when things are not okay, when the unexpected happens, when things are not comfortable? And the reality is, we model it and we practice it.

So we don’t panic when things go wrong, a thing isn’t going well, it’s hard. They are trying so hard to get the circle toy into the triangle hole and it’s just not working. And they’re so frustrated and we just want to be like, “Well, what if you just move it over here.” We just want to help and fix it. But what we need to be able to do is be patient and attentive. So interact with them and understand, oh my goodness, you feel so frustrated right now. It’s so frustrating when you’re trying so hard and it’s not working.

But my goodness, I just believe in your ability to solve this problem and to keep testing things until you figure it out. And here’s what we’re doing. We’re modeling adaptability, not panicking. No panic. But adaptability, figuring out a new way to make it work. Well, that didn’t work out. We made a cake and it fell. This happened recently. My children love to bake, have I mentioned that? So there was baking going on and the cake came out and it was my nine year old and her bestie were baking a cake and in this case it didn’t really fall.

But what happened is, as they were trying to get it out of the pan and they had greased the pan but they hadn’t floured the pan and so when they were trying to take out one of the layers, these round layers for the cake, a big chunk of it fell off. And I was like, “Oh, they’re going to be so distraught. They’re going to be upset. They worked so hard at this cake and they Googled the recipe and they were doing this all on their own.” I was in the other room, they were baking this on their own. And I was like, “Oh, this is going to be interesting. Let’s see how they handle it.” Because this is what happens, things go wrong. How do they adapt to that?

And here’s what happened. They made some frosting and they got it and they put it all together and they stacked the cakes and they built this beautiful cake. I wish I could show you the picture. It was so fun. Actually, really delicious, they had chocolate all over it and candy bar chunks and I don’t know, it was amazing actually. And they built this beautiful cake. It wasn’t exactly how they’d started, but they adapted. And so what we’re teaching when we’re being patient and attentive, so attentive in my mind, means that we’re not just being dismissive of their distress and the discomfort that they’re in, because that’s not healthy either.

That’s like, I don’t know not acknowledging their reality. They are frustrated. A thing happened that was not ideal. It was irritating and sad and frustrating when they’ve worked so hard for this thing. We’re being attentive. We’re there, but then we’re also helping them learn to adapt, because that’s what they’re going to need in their lives. That’s how life works. And then this idea of determination. We just try another thing.

If it didn’t work the way that we initially tried, we adapt and we try another thing and we keep trying things until we get a result that we’re okay with, that may not be A+ work. But my gosh, it’s a B+ or something that can be completely acceptable and workable and we can have a delicious chocolate cake that looks a little weird on one side, but that’s okay. It actually looked pretty dang good. I don’t think anyone would have noticed if I hadn’t said anything. It was kind of amazing.

I loved in this article, that the UK Government put out, they talk about how much learning happens in frustration. And I think when we see kids frustrated, we want to fix it because we care about our kids and we just want to fix it and they’re so frustrated but so much learning happens in frustration. So they’re frustrated. Take a moment to think about this. Why are they frustrated? They’re frustrated because they care about the thing that they’re doing. They care about it. That’s why they’re frustrated. They care so much about it. And so that’s amazing. They care about this thing.

And I think again, that being attentive is acknowledging that and say, “Oh my goodness, I can see you’re so frustrated. You must care so much about this thing because you’ve put this much work into it, or this is the thing that matters so much to you because.” And acknowledging that and saying, “My goodness. You care so much about this and that’s why this is frustrating when you’ve tried so hard and it’s not working. But I believe in you and you can figure out a way. What other things can we try? You can figure out a way to make this work.” So I love that idea. Think about that. So much learning happens in frustration, so don’t try to fix it, be attentive and patient.

Okay, so number four, we kind of stayed a while on number three but number three was important, so was number two, really like those ones. Number four, make sure that children know where things are in a setting. So again, let’s go back to the baking example just because this is one that happened, well, it actually happens all the time, but we had a big example recently. So when you’re trying to help children develop a sense of self and have some autonomy, to be able to work through things and experiment with things and all those kinds of things. It really helps if they know where stuff is.

So if we can help them understand where things are and then offer them some kind of continuity and consistency in this. It supports children being able to use their environment independently. We want to facilitate their independence. We’re going to set them up for success so that they can work independently and experiment independently. And we’re there, we’re attentive, we’re available, but letting them have space. And being patient and letting them have room to explore and try things out. So what does that look like?

How do you help your children know where everything is? We give them a tour. Maybe they’re doing things with you and you show them where things are. Maybe in the classroom, you’re showing them where the supplies are. If they’re getting ready to start a project. Sometimes when I have some friends over, little kid friends over, I’ll take them down and I’ll show them the shelf and I’ll say, “Here’s some of these things. And here’s some of these things. And here’s some of these things. Now, you’re welcome to go and explore, just put them all back when you’re done.” Then they know where all of the tools are, the supplies are and they can use them and interact with them and engage with them in whatever way they want. They have the awareness of the space and where things are.

Okay, number five, a predictable routine helps encourage a sense of self. It helps, I think, create security. It’s so impossible for our brains to be really creative when they’re not secure. So when safety is the primary issue, that’s always going to come first. And so if we’re trying to remove that piece, that block, kind of set that one to the side so we can get deeper and go into curiosity, exploration, all these other things, we have to have some security. So routine helps provide a secure sense of self.

And then another thing we can do is sometimes give children advance notice that things are going to change, kind of help them feel prepared. Kind of if there’s going to be a big change in their routine, let them know. Now, I find some of my kids need this more than others. I think some kids really, really struggle with this more than others. And so I think it’s helpful across the board to have routine and there’s a lot of research behind that. But some kids really, really thrive on having some routine and notice if things are going to be different. And I think that kind of goes back to that awareness of the child.

And just us being aware of it and giving them that advance notice, “Hey, we’re going to have to go to school 15 minutes earlier tomorrow morning. You might want to set your alarm differently or do some tasks tonight so that your lunch is ready to go or your shoes are ready to go or whatever, so that you’re just prepared in advance.” Or, “Hey, we’re going to have to leave in 10 minutes because we have this other thing that we want to go do. And so I’m going to let you go play for another 10 minutes, but then just know in about 10 minutes we need to leave and we need to go fairly quickly.”

So giving them that notice ahead of time is really great. I kind of like to think of structure because there’s this thing where routine and structure are really important but also we want creativity. And do they cancel each other out? And no, I think they support each other and here’s why. Structure provides for that security so there’s a fence. It puts kind of boundaries around things and then go explore in the boundaries. And you know where your fence is. You’re not going to fall off the cliff because you’re within the fence and you can explore and have all kinds of fun inside the fence.

And so I kind of love this idea of structure and predictable routine. And then allowing for the flexibility within that routine as well. I kind of see it as kind of a launchpad. You know how they’re getting ready to send the rocket up and they have all the structure around it to kind of hold it up and keep it safe. And then it goes off on its own. And so maybe that mental image of just our routine, kind of providing that structure around. And then giving them the freedom to go and explore with the support of that structure being there.

So let’s talk about a couple of ideas of activities you can do to help build a sense of self. We’ve talked about some ongoing practices, but a couple of specific activities. In this article, they recommend the name activity, where your name came from. So I love this one. Just kind of building a sense of identity, sense of self, sense of family, where you came from. So your name and it’s kind of this idea of asking to find out how a child’s name was chosen. So sending a paper home with parents or something and saying, “Hey, can you tell us how your child’s name was chosen?”

And then doing the activity where we talk about that, talking about it with your kid, I think it took me a really long time. So my name is Amy and I actually didn’t love my name as a child and I thought it was short and ugly. And I had sisters, three sisters, they all had these really long, beautiful names, multiple syllables, names. They were so pretty and mine was short and stubby and I just, I don’t know, I didn’t like it.

And for years and years and years, I didn’t like my name. Took me actually in high school when I started to like my name, but even then I don’t think I realized and made the connection that my name came from my second great grandmother and also my fourth great grandmother. And so I had this rich, rich history of women that I came from that had my name. And as I got older and I started learning their stories and some of the things that they’d done and actually now have traveled.

And my children and I recently, a couple of years ago, a couple of summers ago went and found the gravestone of my fourth great grandmother and got to get our picture with it. And it’s kind of a historical landmark. They take people to show them this particular gravestone, it’s a pretty significant story. And I didn’t know any of that. So my gosh, does that add to my sense of self that I have this beautiful legacy and history of my name and where it came from. So it’s kind of a simple one, but a really fun one to do, help your child learn where their name came from.

Another one that I really like is this idea of your specials, your specials box or your treasure box. What are things that are special and treasured to you? In our house, we don’t actually have a treasure box. This might work really well at a care facility or something like that where they can bring something special to them and keep it in their box. At our house, what I do in my kids room is they have their special shelf and I love a couple of things about it.

First of all, they get to put their specials in there. Those are their special things, it’s their shelf. But also it’s kind of really cool because they get to learn some skills because they only have the shelf. So we all know what happens. They get their Valentine’s and they put those in there and then they [inaudible] card that they drew or whatever. And then everything kind of starts to collect in the special shelf. And then the special shelf starts to overflow and that becomes an issue. But here’s what’s really cool.

Then they get to go through it and they get to look at the things that they love and then they get to decide what to keep and what maybe it’s time to let go of and maybe take a picture of, to remember by, but let it go and get to do some editing. And that is such a healthy thing for them to learn how to do. And so that can be a really cool skill that they’re learning along with their sense of self.

That is our message for today. Helping children develop a sense of self is so critical. Here’s five ways we can do it. And as we do that, children can learn to challenge themselves, they can become independent. They learn how to set goals and have the confidence to try new things. It’s amazing, and they learn autonomy. It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing. I hope that was helpful. Again, we’ll link the article for you down below.

And if you want to continue the conversation with me because I’m chatty and I love having conversations about stuff that has to do with kids’ brains and learning and sharing and talking stories. It’s my favorite. Come on over to Instagram and let’s talk, I’m there. So come say hello and we can chat about it, Planning Playtime on Instagram. You’re amazing. Keep up the good work you do. And I’ll catch you here next week on the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast.

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Thank you for hanging out with me today for this fun chat on Raising Healthy Kid Brains. If you want to see more of what we’re doing to support kiddos and their amazing brains, come visit us on our website planningplaytime.com. See you next week.