Encouraging Children To Celebrate Small Wins

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Thank you LEGO® Juniors for sponsoring this post. Looking for creative play ideas that will both challenge and inspire your 4-7 year old? Please visit: https://www.lego.com/juniors

As a parent, it’s important not only that I instill confidence in my children but that I give them the tools to be confident when I’m not around. Now that my daughter is 6 years old, I’ve been focusing on encouraging her to celebrate small wins. There is so much excitement around big wins like graduations and recitals but what about the small wins that our little ones put just as much effort towards? Well, I’ve made it a point to celebrate those too because it’s the addition of many small wins that makes a big win possible. She lights up whenever I let her know how proud I am to see her get through a challenge and I know that she’s  learning to believe in herself in the process. So here are 3 of my daughter’s small wins that I celebrate:

1. Learning to spell challenging words.

Now that The Princess Fairy is reading it’s important that she learns to spell well especially to develop her writing skills. At school, her teacher usually gives the class a weekly spelling test. Most times there are one or two words that would be challenging for her to learn to spell because they are a homophone or a long word. We usually have 4 days to practice these words together and in that time we not only practice spelling but also making sentences with the word.  I believe doing this really helps her to develop her vocabulary and not get intimidated by challenging or new words. I always congratulate her and let her know that I am proud even if I told her the same thing just the week before. I want to reinforce to her that I  believe in her so she would believe in herself.

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2. Being a patient and kind big sister.

I shared a few months ago that it was a challenge for my daughter to share us (her parents) with my son when he was first born. She was just a few months shy of three so it was hard to for her to be a big sister when all she ever knew was being the center of our little family. I’ve watched her evolution over the past 3 years and I am really impressed by the way she treats her brother. I make it a point to let her know that I notice all the good she does and I try my best to reward her when she does something great for him. For instance, last week she bought him a toy car at a holiday fair at her school. She had spending money and could have chosen to shop only for herself but she was a kind sister and shopped for him too even though he had money to shop for himself. She’s also very patient with him which I would imagine is tough for  6 year old so I like to celebrate her for that.

3. Building something cool by herself.

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Of course, she needs to decompress from spelling and being a big sister and she thrives on building cool things with her LEGO® Juniors sets. She sits focused for long periods excitedly calling us to show off her success at every stage. These sets are perfect for her age group and it’s so wonderful to see her big smile when she has a breakthrough and figures out a challenging part.  She doesn’t realize it but as a mom, I enjoy the fact that there are premade pieces which I believe gives her a confidence boost. The instructions are also very intuitive which keeps the fun in the challenge for her. Last week, she worked on building a family house and helicopter.

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It warmed my heart to see her enthusiasm while she builds them and how fulfilled she is when she’s finished. It always takes her a few sittings to complete them. Her LEGO play teaches her the importance of breaking down big tasks into smaller bits that feel less daunting and enjoying the process more by doing it little at a time.

 

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I hope this gives you some ideas to encourage your children to develop a spirit of determination and motivation to crush their goals of all sizes.

How do you encourage your child to celebrate small wins?

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of CLEVER and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

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