Leadership is a skill that can be developed in everyone!
No one is born to be a leader — it’s a skill that every child has access to, and when this skill is developed, kids learn a lot about themselves, while improving their confidence, creativity, and how to better work and relate with others.
At A World Of Discoveries in Columbia, a part of our curriculum is helping toddlers and school-aged children explore and cultivate their leadership skills. Learn more about this in today’s post.
Does Leadership In Kids Matter?
When you browse our website, you’ll notice that we may not explicitly talk about leadership in our day-to-day daycare and afterschool programs, yet helping kids develop leadership skills is all a part of what we offer — it’s ingrained in what we do.
Leadership is really letting a child learn from their experiences, letting things happen naturally, and allowing them to work through their own problems to find solutions. This not only harnesses a self-trust that facilitates self-confidence, but they’re able to see the independent outcomes of their choices.
Developing leadership skills does matter, and it plays an important role in early social and emotional development.
How Are Leadership Skills Developed?
Leadership can be fostered in even the youngest kids, and it’s never too early or too late to develop leadership skills in your toddler or big kid.
Failure
Let your kids fail. This is hard — you always want to protect them and keep them from failure or tough feelings, but letting your child fail is one of the biggest things you can do to help them strengthen their leadership skills.
Failure helps develop self-trust and problem-solving skills — it’s allowing them to learn from their mistakes. This way they won’t always look to you, but they’ll instead take chances and realize that failing isn’t always so bad, and get back up to try it a different way!
Encourage Good Listening
Effective communication is at the helm of being a great leader, so teach your little one about the importance of listening and seeing other points of view, even if it isn’t the same as their own.
You can model this by listening to them when they don’t want to do something — a chore, taking a nap, etc. — and then offer your point of view on why they should do something. Openly talk about it, and try to make a decision that honors both people.
Talk Through Problems
Problem-solving is a part of everyone’s day, no matter if you’re a child or an adult, so it’s important to not only be able to identify what’s going, but also to try and solve the issue at hand.
You can help your child problem solve by not giving them the answers, but helping them talk through them.
For example, say their favorite toy is being used by a sibling and they want it to play with it. Ask them questions about what would happen if they went up and grabbed the toy and took it away, or what they could do to share the toy without creating an issue. Talking through a problem allows them to make their own decisions and learn responsibility or experience consequences.
Building Leadership Skills With A World Of Discoveries
There is so much more to uncover about leadership in little ones, so stay tuned for part two! In the meantime, learn more about our Columbia daycare and how you can enroll your child.
Get started today!