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Subject: personal growth

2020-10-21T02:16:30.822Z


Bad times can be great teachers. Ten Ideas to Turn the Pandemic into an Opportunity for Children to Learn Vital Lessons


In recent weeks, parents with school-age children have faced a new challenge that is difficult to manage, due to the lack of historical references, scientific literature, and accurate brushstrokes to guide how to act.

Our children have returned to school, but the coronavirus has changed everything.

Beyond the fear of contagion, doubts are raised about how to keep the little ones motivated.

Will they be able to endure the mask for so many hours?

How will not being able to touch or swap pens affect them?

Nor can we tell them to hold on, that all this has an expiration date, because today we do not have it.

Play improvise, pull creativity and good sense.

It's up to us to give them the tools so that they can fight the battle and come out unscathed and even graceful.

In times of adversity and uncertainty, it only remains to search within ourselves for what we need to be able to go through this stage and to be solid and reliable references for those who are still in the process of building their own resources to face the vicissitudes of life.

Serenity, confidence, optimism.

It is the essential basis for children to find in our calm a safe haven in the face of a hostile and changing reality.

Let's not forget that even in the worst circumstances there is always something positive, in this case, living this reality as an opportunity to grow emotionally and psychologically instead of doing it from helplessness and complaint, thus preventing them from building the role of victim.

The psychologist Viktor Frankl said: "If it is not in your hands to change a situation that causes you pain, you can always choose the attitude with which you face that suffering."

This is vital learning, the wild card that saves us from any setback of destiny.

Flexibility and adaptability.

They are the first subjects of this compulsory personal growth course.

Both skills have allowed humans to survive to date, and are a sign of intelligence.

Flexibility as a mantra, as a vital attitude, essential now and always, whatever life touches them.

Revalue normality.

It is necessary to talk with the children about the value of what we do not have now and that we took for granted: hugging, playing free, exchanging the sandwich at recess, meeting for a pajama party, shaking hands, borrowing notes ... Taking awareness of the value of the small, the everyday, the essential, which brings us closer to the concept of happiness.

Reformulate priorities.

Our priorities have changed and so have those of our children: today, beyond school performance, what matters is taking care of yourself, being well and taking care of others.

It is being versus doing.

Medium or long term.

Our children are growing up in the age of immediacy.

Everything is at your fingertips and in record time.

But this perception of reality is misleading.

What is really worth it is not achieved at the click of a button, or from one day to the next.

We have the possibility to teach them that the effort they are making now, no matter how hard, has a greater purpose: health and a return to the long-awaited normality.

Teamwork.

In the words of Boris Cyrulnik: "When the self is fragile, the we serves as a prosthesis."

Learning that you are part of a system in which you have a relevant role but that you need others to achieve an end is another of the lessons that this time offers us.

Cooperation and collaboration as an icon of survival.

Learn that we are necessary but not sufficient.

Now and always.

What we do or don't do has an impact.

Our children grow up in very isolated universes, which can lead them to believe that their performances have little or no impact on others.

Helping them to reflect on their actions and how they will affect others is to lay the foundations for solidarity, cooperation and a more unitary and less individualistic worldview.

Accompany them.

Anyone who works with children or has children knows that they are born survivors.

If we have done a good educational job, they will find their tools to combat hostility.

They may complain one day or be sad.

Let them express themselves.

They will find a way to go back.

We just have to be attentive in case they need more of us (presence, words, play ...).

Nurturing links is more necessary than ever.

The here and now.

The goal is today, tomorrow, this week.

In this case, we are the ones who can learn from them.

Children are doctors in knowing how to catch the moment.

It is obvious that it is necessary to have an eye on what is to come, but the only certain thing is the here and now.

Resilience.

In recent times this word is used more and more, even too much.

But resilience in its true sense is not surviving adversity, it is not overcoming obstacles and moving on.

Resilience implies growth and learning, the rest is just survival.

Instill in our children that adversity is inevitable, but that they can turn it into a springboard to jump higher, is to educate in resilience.

And yes, all this will pass.

The question is whether we have been able to do something useful with suffering.

“Among the difficulties lies the opportunity,” said Einstein. — eps

Olga Carmona is an expert clinical psychologist in educational neuropsychology.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-10-21

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