Kids and Youth Empowerment Blueprint 101

Intro to Tapping

1. Tapping, also known as EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), is a powerful holistic healing practice that has been proven to effectively resolve a range of issues, including stress, anxiety and other emotional or mental disorders and beliefs.

2. Tapping with the fingertips on certain meridian endpoints of the body, while focusing on our emotions or physical sensations, helps to calm the nervous system, rewires the brain to respond in healthier ways and restores the body’s energy balance.

3. Practise tapping during the week whenever difficult emotions or thoughts come up and write down how it helps you overcome these moments.

4. Refer to the sample videos in this course for guidance and support.

Gratitude

1. The act of focussing on what we are thankful for helps us experience more positive emotions, sleep better, express more kindness to ourselves and others and even develop a stronger immune system. Gratitude trains our brains to look for more positive things instead of what’s wrong which is important especially when we are going through more difficult times.

2. Exercise: Practise one thing each day that you are good at or proud about and observe how it makes you feel. Then write down anything that you are looking forward to or dream about doing and whom you are grateful for such as having beautiful hair or a strong body and cultivate the good feelings it generates for at least 5 minutes.

Example: 1. I am grateful for: …my body and how it is healing itself to be strong and resilient. 2. My part in it is: …putting effort into healing it by eating healthy foods, detoxing and exercising regularly. 3. When I think about it, I feel: …excited for what my body looks and feels like now & in the future & what we can accomplish.

3. When you have a difficult time coming up with something to be grateful for, remember to be grateful for yourself and the gifts you bring to the world, anything that is great about you or in your life. The deep feeling of gratitude for even 5 minutes will elevate your mood.

Agreements

1. Establish promises in your family or with your friends that will help you share more about yourself as well as important experiences that you are going through to get positive solutions and feedback.

Examples could be: 1. I am allowed to show affection & emotions or 2. It is ok to ask for help & support, 3. I can share all my achievements, 4. It is ok for me to ask for emotional comfort, 5. I am allo-wed to show that my feelings have been hurt or ignored, 6. I can express my fears or concerns without judgement, 7. Its ok for me to address problems so we can find solutions to make it better.

2. Exercise: What unspoken rules or beliefs do you have at home or in school that hinder you being heard o understood and you being able to hear and understand your friends and family members.Write them down and review them with either your family, friends or teachers.

Example: ‘I am terrified to say things because I am afraid that people think I am stupid or what I say doesn’t matter.’ Agreement: Mum, can we agree that I can express myself the way I am and that you will be patient with me and listen when I share about myself without judgement so you can understand my side of things and where I am coming from?

Mindfulness

1. What does being mindful mean? It means not attaching to all your negative beliefs or emotions that you think or have to lessen your negative image you might have about yourself. As a thought or emotion enters your mind or body, we tend to judge it. Lets now simply observe it like a cloud in the sky, see it pass & then let it go.

2. Exercise: Mindful Breathing

Put your hand on your belly, close your eyes and take a deep breath through your nose and out your mouth. Feel your belly rising and falling. As you breath you will notice different and distracting thoughts and emotions coming up. Once a thought comes up say ‘THOUGHT’, just label it without judging it good or bad & see it pass. When an emotion (negative or positive) comes up say ‘EMOTION’ and let it pass without judging even if it feels intense. Keep repeating until you can let it go.

3. Doing this mindful exercise once a day for at least 5 minutes will help de-stress you, knowing you don’t have to believe everything that comes to your mind in that moment. Other mindful activities are mindful eating, painting by numbers, reading, colouring, yoga etc.

4. If you have trouble, write down the thought or emotion that gave you difficulties letting go and that reinforced a negative image or belief about yourself so we can learn where it comes from in Week 2. Meantime keep practises your mindful breathing.

Mindfulness exercises trains the brain to slow down, reduces stress, and fixes the attention on the present moment. It gives children an opportunity to understand and experience a place within themselves where they can go to feel safe, happy, and at peace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwgzdJWNwJY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWP4Xl4IDYA

How To Overcome Your Inner Critic

1. When we feel unhappy about ourselves, we typically have negative thoughts, beliefs or emotions working in us and feel like we just want to get rid of these feelings or thoughts by ignoring them or just running away from them. This becomes an automatic behaviour and you get triggered by these negative emotions or thoughts every time you are in a certain situation or around certain people again.

2. Exercise:

1. Identify people, situations, activities and things that make you feel and think badly about yourself for instance school, social media, family, friends or sports, looks or others. What are the specific negative thoughts and beliefs they bring up? For instance ‘No matter what I do, I feel like I am never enough, I hate my body or my family won’t love me if I don’t get straight A’s or I am not smart…’

2. Then discover your behaviours that result out of these negative believes for instance ‘You devalue yourself or you are hypersensitive to criticism or competitive towards others or avoid social situations or minimize your accomplishments etc.

3. After that, write down what you care about or value about yourself. For instance being honest or fun or caring or courageous or motivated etc. What would you want your friends to say about you? Make a list of your values (at least 5-9) and activities that are important to you and that make you feel good about you or if that’s challenging, you can go one step further and ask three or more people you trust and like for the top 5 qualities they admire or appreciate about you.

4. Then turn up the volume of your positive voice by focussing on these strengths, values or qualities and what you like about yourself and how you want to behave & be perceived by others. When you know your values and act upon them, you are less likely to get dominated by criticism of others or your own judge-ment of not being good enough/lovable.

5. Then whenever you are feeling down or negative about yourself and you are in situations and around people that trigger your negative believes or emotions, you can practise replacing them with your list of values and good behaviours that you created.

6. You can keep your list of values handy along with your valued intentions or actions, activities or goals that make you feel better about yourself. Bring it with you in social gatherings or events so you have a reminder of who you want to be when you need it.

The next step in Week 2 is to practise self-compassion whenever your inner critic or feelings and beliefs of inadequacy or unworthiness show up.

Practising Self-Compassion

1. We take on these negative and self-criticising tendencies, are hard on ourselves, feel resistant, want to protect ourselves or are afraid we look weak when we don’t or didn’t receive the compassion or understanding we need growing up. This lowers our Self-Esteem about ourselves.

2. Next time when you criticise yourself or compare yourself to others, try to become aware of it and concentrate on the strength, knowledge and value you had listed that is helpful and beneficial for you so you can increase your Self-Esteem about yourself.

Exercise: Make two columns on a sheet of paper. On one side, write “Critic or Negative Self-Talk” and on the other, write ‘Good or Positive Self-Talk.’ List down all negative statements that you make about yourself under the ‘Bad Self-Talk’ column. Next, turn the negative statements into positive ones. The statements should be clear and specific to your talents or abilities. For instance ‘I am a quick learner and can tackle new areas versus ‘Everyone else is better than I am or I am not smart enough.'

3. If its hard for you to come up with positive self-talk, take a person you like and recognize what they are struggling with. What would it feel like to you to lighten their pain? What would you say about them to make them feel better? Then do the same for yourself just like a friend.

4. If you really have parts about yourself that you can’t accept or emotions that you don’t want to acknowledge, you can do the following exercises:

Mirror Exercise by Lisa Nicols:

In front of a mirror, complete following sentences with at least 3-5 different endings:

1. State your name and look at yourself with love, then say ‘… I love you for…’

Example: Jessica, I love you for standing in front of the mirror right now and doing this exercise; Jessica, I love you for taking care of yourself and getting out of a negative relationship

2. Look in the mirror and state your name and say ‘I forgive you for…’ and choose at least 3-5 endings or things that you never thought sharing or anybody to hear

Example: Jessica, I forgive you for hurting yourself and others because you were hurt; Jessica, I forgive you for not taking good care of yourself; Jessica, I forgive you for wanting people to like you so much that you said ‘yes’ when you should have said ‘no’

3. State your name and say ‘I commit to you that…’ and add 3-5 endings for it

Example: Jessica, I commit to you that I will say ‘yes’ when I want to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ when I need to say ‘no’; Jessica, I commit to you that I will be compassion-nate and forgiving to you when the inner critic kicks in and will press pause and see your kindness and greatness instead.

Do this mirror exercise for at least 7 days and write down at least 3-5 things that you felt or realized or what you really needed to hear or say to yourself lovingly.

Loving-Kindness Practise by Sharon Salzberg:

Write down difficult aspects of yourself:

Example:

1. My Anger

2. My Fear of Failure

3. My Insecurity about what other people think of me

4. My Self-Dislike and Critical Self

Now write down aspirational phrases for each difficult aspect of yourself:

Example:

1. I forgive you Jess, may I live now with love and kindness.

2. I forgive you Jess, may I be free of fear now so I can move forward.

3. I forgive you Jess, may I see and celebrate my positive traits so I can be my own person and fun self.

4. I forgive you Jess, may I keep forgiving myself more and more so I can be more positive and accepting of myself.

Keep saying these motivational phrases to yourself whenever you feel these negative emotions come up.

5. When you experience self-compassion, you won’t feel alone, isolated or separate from other people as treating yourself with kindness and understanding yourself especially when you are facing difficult times lets people see that you are lovable and by sharing what supports you, peeps are likely to treat you better.

Overcoming Fear of Rejection and Building Resilience

1. When we are wondering whether we will be liked or not when we put ourselves out there or when we fear that we aren’t good enough or lovable or will be made fun of for expressing what we need, feel or think, it will be good for us to practise a mentality that supports our worth and creates a good attitude towards ourselves.

2. Exercise:

Write down before certain situations such as when you are worried or anticipate rejection ‘why do I do this’ or ‘what is the advantage and opportunity for me doing this’ and ‘what can I learn about myself and that other person’?

3. Then before talking to the other person, you could start tuning into the other person’s signals first to see if it’s a good time to say or ask them something or if its better to wait as they are preoccupied and therefore not present. You can even ask them when if it’s a good time to talk to them.

4. Then focus on your positive attributes and the opportunities when you do so and be ok with expressing yourself imperfectly in that moment.

5. Typically when you get negative reactions know that it often is not personal but shows that the other person is dealing with their own insecurities and challenges at that moment.

6. To bounce back and feel good again after any tough situation, we have to practise being resilient. Resilience is needed to overcome challenges such as arguments, upsetting test results, sport losses, family breakdowns, death, bullying etc.

7. Exercise: If the child is really afraid, ask the child to list out the things she is afraid to do. For instance, she could be afraid to go to swimming classes because of weight issues or she is scared of doing a class presentation or asking someone out on a date. Let the sentence start with ‘I am afraid to enrol in the swim class because… or I am afraid to talk to so and so because…’

The second step is to imagine doing the thing you fear. Imagine registering for that swim team or talking to that person you like. Develop a ‘so what’ mentality. So every time you write down what you are afraid of, write down the possible negative outcome if you tried it and then ‘so what’ and then come up with an opportunity or alternative answer or idea that helps you to face your fear much easier. Then say for instance ‘Even if I get looked at weirdly in swim class, so what? I might loose weight by the end of it and become really good at swimming or ‘Even if that so and so says ‘no’ to me, so what? I probably get to know somebody that is much nicer to me or a funnier person to be around with.’

8. Resilience is about being realistic, thinking rationally, looking on the bright side, finding the positives, expecting things to go well and moving forward, even when things seem bad. You can also help your child understand that a bad thing in one part of her life doesn’t mean that necessarily everything is bad. For example, if your child gets a poor exam result, you could point out that it won’t stop her from playing weekend sports or going out with friends.

9. If your child is being hard on itself, practise helpful self-talk. For example, instead of saying something like ‘I’m going to die of embarrassment speaking in front of my class tomorrow’, you both could come up with alternatives like ‘Public speaking isn’t my favourite thing, but I can cope’, or ‘Public speaking isn’t my strength, but it’s good for me to try new challenges and I will get better and better’. Your child is more likely to feel positive if she can see that difficult times are a part of life and that things will get better. It might just take a bit longer if we decide to. It can help by talking about how you or people you know have gone through tough times and that things turned out for the better.

10. Working with your child on solutions to problems can build resilience too. And having problem-solving strategies can help your child feel he has the power to deal with difficult situations and get through challenging times which we will talk about in Week 6.

11. It’s important for your child to feel and talk through difficult emotions like anxiety, fear and anger to grow stronger so that with resilience your child will be able to ride out these ups and downs in life knowing it has alternatives and ideas to try out. Keep on practising 'Tapping' to help release negative emotions or thoughts to feel better about yourself.

Ideas for simple strategies to turn low moods into better ones:

• Do things you enjoy or that help you relax, like watching a funny TV show or DVD or reading a good book or practise tapping or doing yoga.

• Spend time with friends or be kind to people to feel better about yourself.

• Do something for someone else – for example, carrying the grocery bags to the car.

• Look for the positive or funny side of a difficult situation. For example, a sprained ankle might mean missing sport on the weekend, and it could give you the chance to binge-watch your favourite TV series or invite your friends or practise learning a language or look for a new vacation destination.

• Do some physical activity, like playing sport or going for a walk or meet new people.

• Go over some good memories by looking through photographs or accomplishments.

As a parent, you could be a role model for your child. Let her see and hear you are being positive and optimistic so your child can practise positive self-talk such as ’Things will get better soon and I can cope with this’, expecting that good things will happen and are possible.

11. Summary of attitudes that build resilience:

Self-Respect and Compassion (Week 2)

Practising self-compassion will help create a good relationship with yourself. Also treating your child respectfully & giving it the belief it matters builds a strong sense of self & helps your child avoid risky behaviour & being less vulnerable to bullies.

Social Skills and Boundaries (Week 3,4,5,6,8)

Capacities for making and keeping friends, sorting out conflicts and working well in teams so you can develop a sense of belonging & make good connections with people you can trust & talk things out.

Problem-Solving Strategies (Week 6)

Working with your child on solutions to problems or conflicts can help it feel powerful in dealing with difficult situations and get through challenging times same as talking through difficult emotions.

Positive Thinking or Self-Talk (Week 2,5)

Includes keeping things in perspective by being realistic, thinking rationally, looking on the bright side of things even if some situations seems less favourable, finding positives, expecting things to go well and moving forward and achieving goals.

Empathy or Respecting Others

Knowing that you are caring, friendly and respectful, accepting people for who they are, compassionate towards yourself & others, makes you feel good about yourself & will likely get positive responses in return.

Ideas For Initiating Conversation

1. Setting intentions for your interactions:

What do I want to get out of this conversation and how do I want the other person to behave towards me?

Keep this in mind and treat the other person accordingly.

Practise to listen without preparing your response and keep an open-mind by not anticipating what might happen next.

2. Be aware of your body language by opening up your body posture to feel more comfortable and confident and turn your body towards the person to indicate friendliness. Smile and create eye contact.

Move towards the other person to close the space and promote conversation.

3. Use Ice Breakers to initiate a conversation such as finding both your common points, similarities or shared interests.

Examples:  You could ask for information such as ‘Do you know where our class room is?’ or give a compliment such as ‘Those are great shoes, it makes me want to go shopping…’ or use humour such as ‘Would you share the umbrella with me, I already took a shower this morning’ or just ask questions or get input on current events or trendy products for instance ‘What do you think of Justin Bieber’s new haircut?’

Transparency and Self-Disclosure

1. Revealing information about yourself by sharing with others and getting to know people through following topics:

Preferences and Interests

Things you like or dislike that encourage other people to share theirs.

Easy Topics

Such as which class, instrument, hobbies or sports you take or do so the other person can get to know you

Your History

Memories or stories from when you where younger and what you experienced and then once you feel comfortable with peeps, you can share harder things like challenges or crunches as we feel closer to people who you can share not-so-great-things with

Beliefs (higher risk)

If you are willing to share some of your opinions even on a lightweight matter, helps people to get to know you and the more they know you, they tend to like you instead of ‘when they know me, they’ll see my flaws’

Values

Needs, feelings or experiences that are more personal or important to you when sharing can create supportive friends and family members and can show if you match with certain people.

What You Want

Sharing desires and wants from the past or for the future can make the other person or you feel let in

Moments and Feelings

Experiences or Feelings that were good and fun are usually a suitable way to start contributing. If vulnerable things will be shared, a brief mentioning beforehand to see the interest to listening can be appropriate.

Present Moment

You can share matters that you feel or need right now which can be risky or can result in a deeper understanding for you from others if they have the same desire.

2. Exercise:

Please start a normal conversation by sharing about a preference, an opinion, or something you feel or want. Then think about how you can transition from a more typical conversation into a deeper or more personal one by for instance disclose a little bit more about your values. Then see what happens.

Is the other person interested? Does the person ask questions? Does the person seem to have any sort of judgment about what you shared? Does the person follow up with his or her own disclosure?

When using this approach, realize that not all connections will grow stronger as some individuals can become judgmental or weird. Know that its okay and realize that that relationship can only exist at the level that works with that particular person. It’s important to invest your energy in people who want it or are deserving such as friends and family members who reciprocate, accept you, and care about you.

Creating A Safe Space For Sharing

1. Is helpful when you want to share certain things that are more personal or what has happened and where you like to be more transparent and authentic about what how you feel.

Instead of hoping to be safe, you can express yourself by using words that are engaging and honest.

2. Examples:

Can we agree that you do not judge when I share something? or

Can we agree that whatever I share stays here?

Can we agree that you will just listen to what I like to share?

…and if the person is willing and ready, you can go ahead to do so.

3. Exercise:

Create a safe space with at least 1 person in your close relationships and then share something daring with them.

Write down what the responses were, how you felt sharing and what opened up.

4. For Adults: Creating a safe space for communication can also include giving space to your kids if it does not want to talk to you about certain things at this moment, it is ok it does not have to. Yet its important to let your kid know that you will be there when its ready to talk and meanwhile it’s ok to have that break or timeout if needed and the conversation can continue after the break its are ready.

Active Listening – The Basics

1. Using active listening demonstrates that you’re paying attention and that you care about what the other person says.

2. General Techniques:

Getting close to the child/person or friend when they speak.

Giving the person your full attention.

By allowing child/person to talk and not interrupting them.

By avoiding questions that break your child’s or person’s train of thought.

By focusing on what your child is saying instead of thinking what to say next.

By looking at your child or person so it knows it’s being heard and understood.

3. Listening Blocks to be aware of:

Comparing

Getting caught up in how we measure up to the other person or others in general

Filtering

When you pay more attention to certain things and less to others

Judging

When you don’t really hear what the other person is saying or dismissing things they say because you have fixed opinions or ideas and beliefs.

Dreaming

When you are completely absorbed by

other thoughts and don’t listen or make a connection with the other person.

Being Right or Sparring

When arguing or disagreeing and trying to convince somebody of something and your main concern is about winning versus discovering the truth or having an interesting conversation.

Advising

Offering a solution with the desire to connect but often makes the other person feel not listened to or understood

Derailing

Changing the subject to avoid criticism or having to talk about something uncomfortable or what makes you anxious

Placating

Agreeing to everything that’s been said to be liked or to make sure the other person feels good which doesn’t help connecting

Identifying

When you focus too much on how your experience relates to what others are saying and therefore becomes more about you and less about them.

Mind Reading

Trying to assume what the other person is thinking without apparent means of communication but guessing or imagining without listening to what is actually said

Rehearsing

When you are trying to control a conversation by creating a response or come up with what you are going to say and therefore missing what the other person is actually saying.

4. 3 Step Process for Active Listening (so the person knows you have been listening and so you can make sure what you heard is what the person said):

Summarizing or Rewording

Using your own words to express someone else's message or what has been said to prevent miscommunication, assumptions or misunderstandings. It makes conversations easier to remember. Examples “In other words…, I hear that you…, I get what you are saying is…’

Clarifying

Making a statement or situation less confused by asking questions which clears up any misunderstandings and sends the message that you’re engaged in communicating and that you care about the person and the situation.

Providing Feedback

After you’ve restated what you heard and asked clarifying questions, it’s your turn to express what you think and feel about what you have heard and what your experiences were while listening without arguing, advising, or derailing. Your feedback needs to be immediate, honest, and supportive.

‘Immediate’ meaning providing your response right away without waiting until an hour or a day later.

As for honesty and supportiveness, feedback should be truthful without being hurtful. Even negative feedback can be delivered in a gentle, supportive way.

For example, instead of saying, ‘You’re hiding something’, you could say, ‘I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me. I’m here for you.’ Or I agree with you on the things you have said and then you could talk about an experience you had yourself that relates to it.

Communication Openers

1. Using non-intimidating tools such as door openers, minimal encourages and infrequent questions, help to start a communication and invite the other person to talk about what is going on.

2. Door Openers:

include typically 4 elements such as:

Description of another person’s body language - ‘Your face is beaming or I can tell you look troubled today…’

Invitation to talk – ‘Care to talk about it? or I got time if you like to talk about it.’

Silence – giving the other person time to decide what to say

Eye Contact and Body Involvement – to demonstrate your interest and invite conversation without being intrusive

3. Minimal Encourages:

are simple responses that can be sprinkled throughout the conversation to encourage the person to keep telling her/his story such as ‘ok, tell me more; I see; right; really?; gosh; and? You bet…’

Minimal Encourages do not imply agreement or disagreement with the speaker but he has been heard.

4. Infrequent Questions:

are open questions to help identify a problem such as ‘What’s on your mind today? What was your favourite part today? What do you want to do now?’

How To Express Feelings & Needs By Using The ‘5 Message’ Strategy

1. Being objective

State what you see or hear of a situation without judgements or feelings involved

Example: ‘I am going snowboarding every Monday; I see a stain on the floor’ versus ‘You always spill things or want to do stuff when I am being busy or going away…’

2. Interpreting your own thoughts

Express your conclusions or views after seeing the situation or details

Example: I think it will be great if you can clean up after.

3. Share your emotions or feelings

Use emotion describers such as I feel hurt, sad, happy or glad without indirectly blaming or criticising the other person

Example: I am feeling sad that you didn’t clean up after versus I feel totally disrespected by you that…

4. Express your unmet needs

What interpretations, wants, needs or anticipations can you express that support the feelings you have without blaming?

Example: ‘Therefore I would like it if you could... or next time I need you to…’

5. Describe positive results as motivation

What personal fulfillment do I see that this action or discussion can lead to?

Example: ‘…so that we can spend more time together talking about…’

Example: Mum, I thought playing clarinet would be fun, so I gave it a try (thought). I really enjoyed it but it seems many members are quite unfriendly and very competitive (observation). I feel I have a hard time connecting to most of the people. It makes me sad to not follow the family tradition and to play the clarinet there, but I really like the idea of staying open to finding the right group for me (feeling). Therefore I like to try on a different group of people so I can still be involved with what is important for our family but also make new school friends (need) so I can be happy and get better playing clarinet.’

6. Communicate direct, clearly, immediately, congruent and be straight.

7. For Parents: Please be supportive, avoid digging up the past, no use of sarcasm or making hurtful comparisons or sending negative messages or threats

8. Exercise:

Practise using the ‘5 Message’ Strategy with at least 1-3 people this week to express your needs and feelings clearly and appropriately and communicate what would help or please you in certain situations without assigning fault.

Why and How To Build Confidence?

1. Confidence comes from feeling in control of your life and having certain skills so you feel capable of doing things. That means a confident child needs to get positive and realistic views on all its abilities through activities & exercises in different areas of life. Your encouraging words & strategies can also help improve your child’s confidence for instance by finding ways together that practise confi-dent boosting skills on a regular basis.

Game: Give your kids a sheet of paper and 15 minutes to list down all its accomplishments or positive thoughts either from today or from the whole week. These can be big or small, anything that makes your kid feel good about itself. Then ask the kids to fold the paper with their accomplishments or positive thoughts about itself and write their names on it, parents can do it too if there aren’t enough kids. Then put the folded papers in a bowl to pass around so that each kid/parent can pick a sheet. Then one child starts reading out loud the accomplishments of another child while the others cheer for that kid. In that way the child gets a boost of confidence knowing it has done well and sees that other people are supporting it also by cheering it on.

2. Another confident boosting strategy is to come up with a routine for yourself if a teen or for your child if a parent to create a habit of good actions every morning. By starting the day with a certain routine can give your child a sense of control and accomplishment every day.

Example: 1. Have it start its day with waking up and doing a round of tapping on whatever it wants to tap on. 2. Then have it practise 5minutes of mindful breathing, yoga or affirmations to feel good about itself. 3. Have it drink a glass of water to rehydrate. This routine will create a positive habit and feeling of accomplishment every day and will soon increase your child’s confidence knowing it is being able to take care of itself.

3. Decision making also empowers kids as it gives them the ability to choose something. To make it easy for them, start by giving them 2 options and ask them to choose what they think is best for them and no matter how goofy it might seem to you if they know they can try and decide on their own they will feel more empowered while learning to make more choices for themselves.

Example: You can let your seven-year-old girl decide what she wears to school as long as it is decent. Make it clear that she doesn’t get to decide if she wants to go to school or not but by allowing her to pick her own clothes or let her decide if she wants her hair long or short.

4. Improving your kids problem-solving skills is another way to increase its confidence. Thus let your child come up with solutions for her problems for the most part but help or encourage it if need be.

Example: If your child comes to you and complains that a kid took her toy at the playground, ask what she thinks would be a good way to get it back. If her first idea is to grab the truck, ask ‘Can you think of other ways to get it back?’ Then create ideas and solutions together or go over the ones your child mentioned and choose an idea to test out. Then, let your child try it out. A solution could be that your kid could be telling the toy-grabber ‘You'll have more fun if you play with me than if you play by yourself or ‘It's okay to want my toy and wish it were yours, but it's not okay to just take it, so if you want to play with it, you have to ask me.’

5. Let your child embrace wins and losses equally and make sure to say that it is okay to fail sometimes. Important is that it can try again and it can be successful the next time. The child can learn from its current mistakes and the idea is to help kids learn that setbacks are normal and it is always possible to find another way to succeed even after a failure. This helps your child build confidence as it motivates your child to try again so it can succeed the next time.

Praise and Positive Self-Talk

1. Parents, you must love yourself before you can teach your child to love/show up for itself. You can model this behaviour by rewarding and praising yourself when you do well or keep following your practises and that you are celebrating yourself and successes so the child can do the same.

Game: Find positive words. For instance one person says ‘start’, and the child starts rehearsing the alphabet in her mind. When the person says stop, the child stops at whatever letter it is and must then come up with as many positive words about herself as she can with that letter. It ncourages the child to remember all that is good about herself which will boost her confidence. Then praise your child for something it did well.

2. By using praise, you’re showing your child how to think & talk positively about itself and see what it is good at. You’re helping your child learn how to recognise when it does well, specifically when using descriptive praise, which tells your child exactly what it is that you like or liked.

Example: ‘I like the way how creative you were and found a word for every letter we picked.’ This helps your child understand what you refer to and is more genuine and detailed than a non-specific praise like ‘You’re a good kid’.

3. Praising effort versus outcomes can encourage your child to try more in the future.

Example: ‘I know you’re nervous about that test but you’ve studied hard. No matter how it turns out, you’ve done your best.’ In that way kids are more likely to keep trying and if your child knows that his effort is what you value most, this can lessen the blow of a ‘failure’ and will help to be optimistic when it faces challenges.

4. Positive Self-Talk also can really impact your confidence as it makes you feel good about yourself and the things that are going on in your life.

Examples: ‘I am doing the best I can, I can totally make it through this exam’, ‘I don’t feel great right now, but things could be worse’ versus ‘I should be doing better or everyone thinks I’m an idiot, ‘Nothing’s ever going to get better.’ By working on replacing negative self-talk with more positive self-talk, you’re more likely to feel in control of what’s going on in your life and achieve your goals.

Exercise: Write a list of things that you are good at and things that you might need improvement in or want to learn. Discuss your list with your family and friends. Celebrate your strengths for instance being part of a team and find ways to manage a weakness for instance learn how to assert yourself. Setting this goal that puts your strengths into action (like registering for a sports team) & and a goal that helps you get better at something will increase your confidence.

Why learning to be more assertive is good for your confidence

1. When we are not assertive we can suffer from a loss of confidence and self-esteem as we aren’t getting what we need which is more likely to make us less successful in the future also. It is therefore important to break this cycle and learn to be more assertive.

Exercise: Reflect on the last time you felt unsuccessful in a conversation. Was it the outcome or how you felt during the conversation? Did you hold back from expressing because you were afraid of being criticised or rejected for your feelings? Did you give in to others?

2. Those with low self-esteem or self-confidence may invite others to treat them poorly. Being assertive can help us feel better about ourselves by setting clear boundaries as it means expressing ourselves clearly and standing up for what we believe in or like to do which in return makes others feel like they can trust us as we are open & reasonable by saying things as they are without offending other people’s views or feelings.

3. When you struggle to express your feelings or needs, take a few minutes to write an assertive goal with the help of the 5 Message Strategy from Week 4 or using at least 3-parts as key steps: Your perspective – I think, Your feelings – I feel and Your wishes – I want.

Example: I think we don’t collectively make an effort to get the chores done. I feel overwhelmed and resentful when I have to do our chores alone. I want to establish a rule that we do the dishes together before we move on to our own activities.

4. Exercise: Practise coming up with your own assertive statements you can see yourself saying and have your body language (standing upright in a relaxed manner, maintaining eye contact, open hands, looking interested) reflect your intent. Be direct with your feelings. Practise these skills with someone you are comfortable talking to first until you feel more confident in doing this.

5. If you are the one listening to the person expressing their needs; stay calm and interested, do not interrupt, ask for more information if necessary, do not instantly agree or disagree and leave time to think to show your consideration and understanding.

6. Assertiveness also includes refusing demands of others that you consider to be unreasonable or think are unable to meet. You could say ‘Unfortunately I won’t be able to share my homework with you because I might have done them differently than you would do them’ or something similar so you can set boundaries for possibly being used or giving responsibility back to others if needed.

Promoting Problem Solving

1. Kids who lack problem-solving skills may avoid taking action when faced with a problem and is the reason why many kids fall behind in school or struggle to maintain friendships. Other kids spring into action without recognizing their choices. A child may hit a peer who cuts in front of him in line because it's not sure what else to do or may walk out of class when being teased as it can't think of any other ways to make it stop. This will create bigger problems in the long run.

2. Research has found that you can teach even a young child how to solve problems itself which can improve its mental health.

Here are the 5 Steps:

Identify the problem

Help your child state the problem such as ‘You don't have anyone to play with after school, is that right? Let's problem-solve this together.’ By voicing this out loud, you can make a big difference for kids who feel stuck.

Develop at least 5 doable solutions

Brainstorm possible ways to solve the problem that don't necessarily have to be good ideas. Even a silly answer is a possible solution. The key is to help it see that with a little creativity, it can find many different potential solutions to a problem

Identify pros&cons of each solution

Help your child find potential positive and negative consequences for each potential solution it identified.

Pick a solution

Once your child has evaluated the possible positive and negative outcomes, encourage her/him to pick a solution.

Test it out

Tell her/him to try a solution and see what happens. If it doesn't work out, it can always try another solution from the list.

3. You can use this approach even when you encounter behavioural issues or to help your child become independent. Sit down together and say, What can we do to make sure this doesn't happen again? Let's problem-solve this together.’

4. Let her/him try and develop some solutions on its own. It might say; ‘I'll write a note and stick it on my door so I'll remember to do it before I leave’. Kids often develop creative solutions on their own.

5. Natural consequences may teach problem-solving skills as well.

Example: Let your teenager spend all of his money during the first 10 minutes you're at an amusement park if that's what he wants. Then, let him go the rest of the day without spending any money to help it make a better choice next time.

Conflict Management Skills

1. When growing up or nearing early teenage years, you might clash with your friends or parents more often as you become more independent and have different views or opinions. As a parent dealing with conflict in effective ways, can help your child learn important life skills.

2.General Tips

Stay calm, stop what you are doing, make eye contact, listen and treat each other with respect. Be open to hearing the other person’s point of view and when finished you can talk. Both people have to be open about their feelings so the other person can understand why and where you are coming from.

3. Carefrontation vs. Confrontation

A speed bump is the ability to go over something in a relationship and cleaning things up by slowing down, taking a look and then deciding to do things differently. Whereas if you don’t address the bump, it becomes a stop sign which brings the relationship to a hold especially if you don’t know how to communicate.

Confrontation says ‘I am right, you are wrong’ and breaks down the friend- or relationship and therefore dismantles trust and makes it hard to be tolerant towards eachother.

Therefore turn confrontation into carefrontation by intending to complete the conversation with the relationship still intact. This results in both being on the same page, creating a stronger relationship or embracing each other as friends knowing you both can talk through conflict effectively.

Steps for Carefrontation:

1. Honor the person across and start with a level of zero & then take the person up by listing 2 things that you appreciate about that person. Say ‘Name, what I appreciate about you is…’

Example: Jessica, I appreciate that you are committed to getting things done, Jessica, I appreciate that you are telling me how you feel…

2. List 2 things that you respect/admire or love about that person. Say ‘Name, what I most respect/admire/love about you is…’. Now that you brought that person up, you can address the issue.

3. Eliminate making wrong and make a genuine request such as ‘I need your support with…’ or ‘what would work better for me is…’ which takes away the defence

Example: ‘I need your support in getting to school in time so we are committed to your education or I need your support in telling me what you need before I can figure it out…’

4. ‘Can we make a new agreement to…’ to ask for solution by working together and then wait for the response to see if the person agrees or what agreement works for both of you.

Exercise: Take a close friend or family member and practise having a carefronta- tion. Journal what happened or came up.

4. Another method for simpler requests or conflicts with people in general is again using the main parts from the 5-Message-Strategy (Week 4) for instance by being open about your feelings so the child can understand why you want it to do certain things or why you say ‘no’.

Example: I feel (feeling) worried about your safety when I don’t know (thoughts) where you are and I need (need) to make sure you’re safe if you’re out at night. It helps (expectation) if you tell me where you’re going and who you’re with.’ or

‘I realize (observe) you want a tattoo but I feel (feeling) you are too young with 13 and I think (thoughts) you’ve got lots of time to think about it. So I want (need) you to understand that the answer is ‘no’ right now.

5. Despite best efforts, one of you might take a while to calm down after or feel disappointed. It’s ok, do accept that and express that and then give yourself the space you need.

6. It might also help to know in general that teenagers are still learning how to express feelings & views. Your child might feel the need to express its views very strongly to be heard as its still learning how to handle its strong feelings, so it can help to be patient in situations like that.

7. In a case when you experience a conflict that needs quick resolving, you can use the ‘Choice Theory’ by Brene Brown:

As a teen, you could tell your friend, ‘You have 2 choices, you can either stop gossiping behind my back or I won’t be able to be your friend for a while because it hurts me. I would hate that for us but its your choice’ which gives your friend a clear choice to decide what’s more important for it. Then depending on its choice you can either remain friends or make sure to integrate your consequence if your friend decides to keep talking behind your back.

As a parent you could say to you child, ‘You have 2 choices, you can either hand over the toy or I will have to take it away from you and when I have to take it away from you, you will loose the privilege of playing with it tomorrow. I would hate that for you but that would be your choice, so what is your choice? In that way your child can decide and you also teach it to take responsibility for its own actions as you gave it a clear choice.

8. If you have to set consequences in place, please make sure that the consequence is related to the misbehaviour (loosing the privilege to play with the toy) and that it is reasonable in duration (for a day) and make sure to reveal it in advance so the child knows and can make the choice for itself. You can also have the child repeat back the consequence if necessary to be on the same page.

If the child decides to make a poor choice, please make sure to implement the consequence agreed upon and follow through to be taken seriously so the child can make a better choice for itself next time.

9. Conflict is ok, but violence isn’t, so if your child or friend is showing early signs of violent behaviour, it can help to:

1. Let the person know that you’re willing to talk to her/him and work things out together when she/he has calmed down or Say that you won’t speak with the person while in that state.

2. Give a clear message that the behaviour is not OK. Set clear boundaries by walking away from the situation.

10. If your child is angry at you about something you did that hurt her, you can also start by showing that you understand how it affected her, you could say you’re sorry, and then try to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen again. That might help resolve the conflict as the child realizes you are listening to it and that you are understanding of how it affected her.

11. Again if you are in a situation where you feel angry also, please take a break and notice what you are feeling, even if you’re in the middle of a conversation with your child, take that time out so you can work out how you’re going to deal with your feelings first. This isn’t always easy & it takes practice, so please be kind to yourself & your child as you learn better ways of dealing with a conflict.

If your child has experienced violence, it might need professional help to feel safe & to learn new ways to behave, same if you find it hard to control your own anger.

Responding To Criticism

1. We all have a difficult time to hearing criticism as we connect it with rejection and feelings of defectiveness. We can therefore get angry, lash out, become quiet or criticize the other person, which are passive or aggressive approaches that harm the relationship, so let’s beware.

2. How to differentiate criticism healthily?

Constructive criticism is helpful feedback that improves situations such as ‘You are very good in …’ or ‘I like you to improve in…’ or ‘If you could do this instead, you will be much better… and therefore makes you better in certain areas. It starts on  a good note.

If you know some individuals that are angry or critical by nature and do not realise that they are hurting the feelings of another person, you know you are usually dealing with destructive criticism which typically makes you feel bad about yourself.

3. If destructive, try not to take these nega-tive comments too seriously as coming from such people they can only demea-nour you or put themselves higher. There is no equality so when people criticise you in this way, you don’t have to agree or let it in and choose to block it out. Most critical people have the most criticism reserved for themselves therefore just take a breath and know its an insecurity they have and not about you but them.

4. 3 Strategies to respond to criticism:

Acknowledging

Examples: ‘I am sorry you feel that way but I don’t agree with you’ or ‘Thanks for sharing that, I don’t happen to agree with that’ or ‘ Yes I am late and I know its inconsiderate to keep you waiting’ so you simple acknowledge but don’t let it in

Clarifying

Examples: Ask Questions. ‘Could you repeat that?’ which challenges people and they usually back away or you can ask ‘Are you trying to make me feel bad?’ which makes the person back away as well or ‘By the way since we are sharing, did you know that critical people have the most criticism reserved for themselves?’ or you can just agree with something you are ok with and ignore the rest for instance ‘You never have time for your friends anymore. – Yes you might be right, I don’t have a lot of time right now’ or ‘It is true I don’t like dealing with complicated situations.

Probing

Mainly for when you are confused or in doubt if the criticism is being manipulative and to know the intention of it. Repeat back by being more specific in your questions.

Example: You don’t seem to put in a good effort when we work together. – Ok, what exactly bothers you about what I contribute? or You always offer to do the easiest parts. – Ok, what exactly are the easy parts for you? What else annoys you about what I am doing?’

Sibling Fighting

1. Siblings really are much more important than your friends & classmates. While friends and mates may come and go, your brothers and sisters will always be your family and more likely to help you more than anyone else therefore getting along well will help foster that supportive relationship.

2. What could you do when siblings are fighting? Whenever possible, do not get involved, only if there's a danger of physical harm and hurt. If you intervene, you risk creating problems even if interve-ning seems faster and less stressful to you. Reason being kids will start expecting your help and waiting for you to come to the rescue rather than learning to work out the problems on their own.

3. Remember, as kids cope with disputes, they also learn important skills such as how to listen and value another person's perspective, how to compromise and negotiate, and how to control aggressive impulses.

4. If you are concerned about the language used or name calling, it will be great if everybody in the family can discuss rules for acceptable behaviour together before-hand including yelling or door slamming so it’s set in place.

5. Establish consequences for when the agreements get broken. This teaches kids that they're responsible for their own actions, regardless of the situation or how provoked they feel. Avoid getting into debates about what’s fair and equal. Explain to your children that their age difference might mean a difference in what they are allowed to do, and what responsibilities they have. Try to make sure that they get similar treatment at similar ages.

6. Do not take sides, if you take sides, one child might feel unfairly treated and feel you’re showing favouritism. It’s better to coach them through by helping them to work it out and see what they are arguing about. Get both teenagers to state their problems and what they want, and then brainstorm possible solutions. Writing things down can be a good idea, to make sure they get all the brainstorm-ming ideas on paper.

7. If lots of emotions are involved, give your kids space without instantly rehashing the conflict otherwise the fight can escalate again. If you want to make this a learning experience, wait until the emotions have died down and the kids are both calm then you can look at what the conflict is about rather than focusing on who started it. After all, they’re fighting, they’re both responsible.

8. After the break, try to set up a "win-win" situation so that each child gains something. When they both wanted the same toy, perhaps there's a game they can play together instead until they are able to decide who can use the toy first.

9. Be proactive in giving your kids one-on-one attention directed to their interests and needs. For example, if one likes to go outdoors, take a walk or go to the park. If another child likes to sit and read, make time for that too.

10. Make sure kids have their own space & time to do their own thing like playing with toys by themselves, playing with friends without a sibling tagging along, or enjoying activities without having to share. The most common areas of conflict between siblings are equality, fairness, personal space, possessions and friends.

11. Have fun together as a family. This can help ease tensions between siblings. Since parental attention is something many kids fight over, fun family activities can help reduce conflict. You can be a positive role model as kids learn to deal with differences by watching and listening to their parents.

12. If fights between your kids seem frequent, hold weekly family meetings to give your kids a chance to voice their concerns in an appropriate way and consider establishing a program where the kids earn points toward a fun family-oriented activity when they work together & stop battling.

Frenemies And Toxic Friendships

1. Teenage friendships can sometimes turn ‘toxic’ if you hang out too much with ‘frenemies’. Teens that can be quite mean instead of making you feel good and accepted. Toxic friendships can lead to negative feelings about yourself by putting you or other people down, manipulate you or leave you out from certain activities.

2. To avoid toxic friendships, its important to know what ‘good’ friends are like. Ones that look out for you, care about you, include you in activities, cheer for you and treat you with respect. Knowing that, will help you work out which people are good to hang out with or are not.

3. You could find a wide range of friends from a variety of places such as school, sports teams, sitting together at lunch, working on assignments, or doing some social activities. Family friends and neighbours are great too so you have other people to turn to if something goes wrong with a friendship.

4. Sometimes frenemies act in negative ways because they get good reactions. You can use your problem-solving steps to create a solution for stopping it. Using a witty comeback, being assertive, or walking away without comment can change the dynamic.

5. If you want to keep a certain friendship although knowing its not necessarily good for you, find ways to change it.

Example: Lets say your friend makes a lot of negative comments about your appearance and gets away with it because you aren’t clearly saying that you don’t like it. You might need to say something like, ‘I feel you are being rude, I need you to stop that if we want to stay friends.’ Sometimes a bit of assertiveness is what you need to show you can stand up for yourself & stop the unwanted behaviour.

6. If you as a parent feel that your child’s behaviour is being influenced negatively by frenemies, address it. You could say, ‘Whenever you spend time with Josh, you come home angry and upset’. The statement focuses on what needs to change in the friendship and is better than, ‘I don’t want you hanging around Josh anymore’ and gives your child the chance to see it and change it.

7. If your child is prepared to end the friendship, it needs to decide how to tell its frenemy. It might need to say something like, ‘As I mentioned before I don’t like the way you gossip about me behind my back and since it didn’t change, I can’t be your friend anymore.’

8. Be prepared for the fall-out from the end of a toxic friendship. The frenemy might try to make life difficult for you as break-ups can sometimes lead to bullying. So be kind and honest with yourself and talk about it with your parents or teachers so you can find ways to address it.

Bullying and what to do?

1. Bullying is mean and hurtful behaviour that happens on an on-going basis and can occur in different forms:

Verbally - insulting, threatening or ma-king fun of someone.

Behind someone’s back – playing nasty jokes, spreading rumours, or encouraging peers to exclude someone.

Physical - pushing, tripping or hitting a person or damaging property.

Cyberbullying - using digital technology to deliberately harass or humiliate.

2. Why bullying happens:

Kids might see aggressive behaviour at home or somewhere else and might have learned to be intolerant towards certain groups of people or have experienced physical & emotional abuse themselves and have been hurt by bullies.

When kids get older they sometimes look for ways to feel significant and powerful and therefore bullying often happens in toxic friendships. That is when children make fun of or socially exclude someone in the group with the behaviour often being very subtle. The child who’s being bullied can feel very confused about it.

3. Your child might try to hide it from you and others because it might feel ashamed or afraid and might not want you to worry or make a big deal. But there are signs of bullying that you can look out for.

Example: A child who’s being bullied might refuse going to school, is unhappy before or after school, says it hates school, starts doing poorly at school, becomes more isolated from others, shows noticeable changes in behaviour and emotions, has trouble sleeping, low self-confidence, bruises, missing belong-ings or tells you often that it has head-aches, stomach aches or other physical problems.

4. Bullying Survival Tips

1. Ignore the bully and walk away. It's not a coward's response and can sometimes be harder than losing your temper. Bullies thrive on the reaction they get, and if you walk away or ignore hurtful emails or instant messages, you're telling the bully that you just don't care. Sooner or later the bully will probably get bored with trying to bother you. Try to hold your head high to send a message that you're not vulnerable to it.

2. Hold the anger. Who doesn't want to get upset with a bully? But that's exactly the response the bully wants to get as they want to know they have control over your emotions.

3. If you're in a situation where you have to deal with a bully and you can't walk away, use humour as it can throw the bully off guard. Work out your anger in another way, such as through exercise or writing it down or talking about it with a trustee.

4. Don't get physical as it shows your anger so you can never be sure what the bully will do in response. You are more likely to be hurt and get into trouble if you use violence against a bully. You can stand up for yourself in other ways, such as gaining control of the situation by walking away or by being assertive in your words or action.
Some adults believe that bullying is part of growing up as it builds character and that hitting back shows you standing up. But that's not the case. Aggressive responses tend to lead to more violence and more bullying for the victims.

5. Practice confidence and feeling good about yourself (even if you have to fake it at first). You can't control other people's actions, but you can stay true to yourself. Think about ways to feel your strongest.

Exercise is one way to feel strong and powerful and a great mood lifter. Learn a martial art or take a class like self-defence or yoga. Joining a class, club, or gym is a great way to make new friends and feel good about yourself & will help you ignore the mean kids.

6. Talk about it. It may help to talk to a counsellor, teacher, friend or anyone who can give you the support you need. Talking can be a good outlet for the fears and frustrations that can build when you're being bullied.

7. Find your (true) friends. By finding 1 or 2 true friends you are able to entrust how the gossip has hurt your feelings and what's true and not true about you.

8. Try to avoid being alone (and if you have a friend in this situation, spend as much time together as you can). Try to remain part of a group by walking home at the same time as other people or by sticking close to friends or classmates.

9. As a parent when your teen comes to you and tells you that it is being bullied, you can support your child by:

1. Showing lots of love in a way that suits your child’s age and maturity. It might be a big hug or telling it that you love it.

2. Actively listen to the child’s feelings for example ‘It sounds like you are being left out of a lot of things, that must really hurt’

3. Telling your child its not her fault and that you’ll help her sort it out.

10. It’s important to get the help of the school as quickly as you can if being bullied at school. Have a record of what’s going on. Such as what happened, name(s) of the person or people who did it, when and where it happened, what your child has already said or done to try to stop the behaviour.

11. Help your child to identify safe places and supportive adults at school. Use a map of the school to find safe places and get your child to write down the names of three adults at the school she could go to.

Goal Setting

1. If kids can envision themselves doing something important or fulfilling when they grow up, they're bound to feel more confident now.

2. Talk to your child about how you or other adults he knows chose careers. Your child may dream of being a pop singer or an astronaut, but don't try to lower his expectations. Even if he changes his mind, the important thing is that he's thinking about his goals and what he likes.

3. One fun way to teach children goalsetting is through the use of vision boards. They’ll have fun cutting out pictures and arranging them on a board, and in the process they will learn how to visualize what they want to achieve.

4. It is important to get kids and teens inspired through other ways besides physical to reach their competence goals such as introducing them to life-long questions like:
‘What kind of person do I want to become? Who inspires me? What do I value and what skills do I need? What do I like & what kind of world do I want to create with my conversations and actions?

These can be tough questions but they are also powerful and challenge a teen to develop more inner and relational goals, rather than being only outer-directed so kids can provide for their own fulfillment by working on who they want to become.

5. Other reasons for learning goal-setting is that it teaches them to take responsibility for their own behaviours and learning, promotes a ‘can-do’ attitude and forms a powerful lifelong habit for creating successes in their lives.

6. Here are some Tips for goal setting with kids:

1. Break big goals into little goals or small bite sized chunks.

Example: a child may not be able to achieve getting an 80% on each and every test but he/she does have control over how much studying is done. A good goal would be to review notes every night for 20 minutes and to begin studying 3 days before a test or similar

2. Keep goals short term to start with. For instance start small by focussing on a goal that can be accomplished in about a week or so for instance practising gratitude or mindful breathing 5min a day

3. Celebrate success! When a goal is achieved, celebrate! Talk about how proud you are of yourself for achieving it and tell your friends, family or anyone! J

4. Build on the goal if important or change them. Kids interests change so it is possible that their goals will too.

Team Work and Activities

1. Try to identify your children’s interests early on to encourage their participation in group activities. Kids learn valuable lessons about teamwork through these activities and it is a great way to learn to respect others, which is key to integrity.

Exercise: If you are part of a sport team or any other groups, choose a person you haven’t been able to connect with yet more and explore what the 2 of you could have in common. Write down at least 3 questions to ask to get to know that person better.

Game: This game allows children a chance to develop self-control.

Game Name: What I like about your picture, Material: Crayons/Paints/Markers Participants: 2 to many

Allow kids to create a picture using a theme, like drawing their favourite animal. Once completed, have them individually share their pictures. Once an individual has shared their picture, invite remaining students to say things they like about the sharers picture.

Allowing children to see that they all are good at things just in different ways can be a very great learning experience and teaches the child to get to know their strength better and what others are great at and that everyone does things differently in their own ways, which can be great and humbling at the same time.

2. Having a good teacher or coach can also be important for the teamwork process as it takes someone with a good knowledge and experience to guide kids through the process of differentiation and yet teamwork and why they are each important, which can make a big difference in a team.

3. When children feel like they're all making a difference, they feel more confident. It's good for kids to have their own responsibilities and it may be even super empowering for a young child to assist you as a parent with a project to feel its strength or skills matter, for example you could say ‘I could really use your help with...' which shows the child its help is needed and important.

4. Family game nights are great too. Consider an evening of sport or board games instead of TV which not only provides a unique way to spend time together, it also helps children learn to be a good team player, play by the rules, and think strategically.

5. As a family, you likely have many planned events may it be a vacation or something else. As you prepare, you could involve your children in the planning process. Hold brainstorming sessions and delegating smaller tasks to your young family members.

6. Teaching children to look outside themselves and notice the needs of others as well builds the character of a leader. Encourage your kids besides cheering for themselves to also cheer for their fellow teammates at sports events. Even if kids disagree and personalities clash, it’s in the team settings where kids will build important character traits and learn how to appreciate eachother's differences and learn to get along.

Negotiation Skills

1. Young children, teenagers and even preteens struggle with common conflicts and arguments such as who owns that toy, why do I have to go to bed now, I don’t want to go to school, I want to use my computer before I do my homework, my girlfriend’s parents let her go out late and so on but we can learn and give kids a language they can use on themselves or with another child to help change from a negative to a positive perspective.

2. Children usually understand that every situation has two sides. To find a solution, each child needs to understand the other person’s side as well, and that neither one is ‘at fault’, they just think differently.

If kids can agree that each of them wants the situation solved even in different ways, they can begin looking for a ‘shared interest’.

3. These shared interests can be almost anything, for instance it could be to still keep playing together after an argument and will therefore be the turning point for negotiation. The next step is to invent and create options for this mutual gain.

For example, if two kids want to use the same iPad app and there is only one iPad, they can talk to each other about how to be happy with one iPad. One may suggest, “Oh, I can play on my smartphone while you use the soccer game. Then we can switch.” Or one child uses the game for 10 minutes while the other child cheers him on & then they switch places.

4. It takes kids time and practice to get used to finding options. Once they learn this technique, they will use it on their own and just need reminders to be possible more creative when thinking of ways to share. Its great to have them keep practising.

5. Please set agreements for all negotiations and consequences similar to conflict solving. Young children are the most sensitive to perceptions of fairness. For example, a rule could be, 'No hitting, shoving, kicking or yelling mean words or threats.' If both children can agree to this rule, they will remember it for their future conflicts.

6. Never yield to pressure of one child and stay equal to both kids. If one child insists on his criteria only, ask him to give you a reason why and suggest a new rule that applies for both kids. Stick to what has been discussed for the negotiation so it’s fair for both kids.

7. You have to be creative to think of alternatives if both can’t come to an agreement. Talk to both parties and generate a list of actions to take if they can’t agree and choose the best one, for example maybe you put away the iPad that they are arguing over, and they play soccer outside instead.

If one child feels cheated, then the outcome isn’t good for both children. There is not one single method that guarantees success so try different ones until you find one that works for both kids or friends.

8. If a parent and a kid need to negotiate something, try to problem-solve together for instance your child wants to paint his room black, you could say ‘I don’t want you to paint this room black because it makes the house feel too dark. Is there another colour you’d be happy with, or perhaps just paint one wall black? Do you have any other ideas?’ Show that you’re willing to compromise and that you want to agree on something that you can both accept though.

Once the compromise is found, state the decision you both have agreed on. Then discuss and decide on consequences if the agreement gets broken, for example, ‘We’ve agreed that you can paint one wall in your room black. We’ve also agreed that if you paint any more than that, you’ll have to buy the white paint yourself and paint the walls white again. OK?’

9. End on a positive note even if the negotiation wasn’t perfect, for example you could say, ‘Thanks for talking that through with me. I appreciate that we were able to work things out. It shows me that you’re a mature person’ which leaves the child feeling good about itself and ready to negotiate again next time.