Self-evaluation

Empowerment Tool

Children are hard-wired to seek approval from the people in their environment, as this is how they stay safe and protected, and learn the customs of their culture. However, this needs to be balanced with a healthy amount of self-knowledge, confidence, and internal self-support. While being in community and creating connections is incredibly important, doing so in an authentic way, and being one's true self rather than twisting oneself to become what others want, is essential for long-term mental health.

HOW TO DO IT

While it's important for your child to listen and learn from the instructions and feedback from you, as well as teachers, coaches and others, ALSO consistently remind them to check in with their own experience. Reflecting on their own processes and evaluation is golden self-knowledge.

In addition, or sometimes instead of, offering your assessment of their performance, as for your child's own assessment. For example:

"Wow, look at your painting! Tell me about what you made."

"Well done at the meet! How do you feel about it?"

"Gosh what a big tower you've built. How did you figure out how to do that?"

Encouraging awareness of their own feelings and emotional responses to their work and other situations helps them become their own guide. As questions such as:

"What parts of that were enjoyable?"

"Where did you struggle? How did you more forward when it felt difficult?"

"How does playing with that friend make you feel?"

The world will give your child plenty of negative feedback. It is so tricky, and most adults have not mastered, the art of separating the wheat from the chaff of this feedback. How do we distinguish:

Valuable insights from which we can grow and impove
Irrelevant opinions, which are more about the critic's own preferences or style
Incorrect, or worse, bad intentions on the part of the critic

Rather than jumping to dismiss anything that makes your child feel bad, first listen to their feelings of hurt and disappointment. Offer connection and Staylistening to help them dispel the very hard feelings that come form social criticism.

When they're ready, ask for their own thoughts and evaluation. Do they even agree? if so with that parts? Is there anything useful there? are there parts they don't agree with? why might the person have that opinion? what steps might they want to take?

Helping your child not being stopped by criticism, failire, or disappointment is an enormous life skill.