Today, Dr. Jen shares a very vulnerable and important message. That message is to tie our self-esteem back to the intention behind our actions. Not the outcome!
Listen in to learn more. You might end up thinking a little differently or find something to add to your parenting skills ?
Watch the video below or on our Facebook Group HERE.
Thank you so much for being a part of the Umbrella Project and helping us improve wellbeing for everyone!
Each month, we focus on one piece of what makes a powerful umbrella of wellbeing skills. In December, we are adding Self-Compassion to our umbrella of wellbeing.
Do you often catch your child saying harsh things about themselves and their abilities or struggling to take ownership for their mistakes?
You won’t be surprised to hear that 75 percent of people treat others more kindly than they treat themselves. In fact, self-compassion is the umbrella skill that is the weakest piece in most umbrellas (children and adults alike). It’s also the piece that most adults report wishing they had learned earlier in their lives.
Self-compassion is treating yourself like you would a good friend instead of offering harsh judgement to self-motivate. It’s understanding that our struggle and imperfections are a normal part of being a human instead of something bad.
When we are critical and mean to ourselves, it is like having our own personal bully following us around all the time. This critical voice reduces our self-confidence, making it harder for us to succeed. Instead, self-compassion helps us to be kind to ourselves and recognize that struggle is a normal part of life that everyone experiences. It allows us to accept difficult feelings instead of trying to suppress or getting swept away in them.
Self-compassion has so many benefits including improving our body image, our resilience to stigma, our desire to learn and our ability to take responsibility for our mistakes.
If we want to work hard day after day towards a long-term goal, we need to be organized and demonstrate care about deadlines, timeliness, and the quality of our work.
These are the same qualities so central to conscientiousness. Learn more with Dr. Jen’s grit skill building tip! Watch it below or on our Facebook Group and Youtube Channel.
Today’s tip for building grit in your children is a question you can ask them.
Try asking your child this question as they are working toward a goal and hit an obstacle. Listen in with Dr. Jen to learn more!
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.” ― JK Rowling
Welcome to November at the Umbrella Project!! Last month we dove into building a sense of Gratitude and this month we are shifting our focus to a skill that helps us persevere in the face of challenges, Grit!
Does your child give up easily when things get tough? Do they fear failure or take it very personally?
Grit is the skill that helps us persevere towards the long-term goals we are passionate about.
Excellence in anything we do requires commitment, hard work and lots of bumps in the road. To be successful and happy we need to learn to take failures in stride and not give up when we get to the hard parts. Grit helps us take on a practice mindset, knowing that our perseverance will pay off in time. It can help us set important goals and the overcome obstacles in our way, even on the toughest days.
In every type of work or school subject, grit can be as important to our success as talent or intelligence and is an important piece of a complete umbrella of wellbeing.