Watch out for the impostor syndrome that can creep up slowly
Impostor syndrome is commonly seen in adults and children. Here are a few parenting tips that can assist you to reduce your child’s feelings of insecurity.
Read MoreA picture is worth a thousand words
Sometimes younger children struggle to understand how to deal with a situation that can overwhelm them. This could be about finding friends or it could be trying to work out how to play with other children. One way to help a child is to simply draw the story. How best to play, for example. The first page shows the child meeting the friend. The second page may show them greeting the child and the third page could be about what to say such as, "can I play with you?".
The story unfolds through the simple pictures. Keep the pictures and story simple. We call this a social story and they work very well with children who cannot respond well to just being told what to do. Some children do not process the problem easily through discussion.
I have used this with many a child and they love telling the story through the pictures. The child especially enjoys telling you how successful they were when they went through the process and followed the picture book. A social story can change if you find it needs a new direction. Children learn through visual images and when they are emotional about matters, pictures speak a thousand words. Simple drawings can say many unspoken words which gives the child a chance to express their feelings comfortably. To help a young child, the parents can draw their own social story to help the child understand the value of the pictures.
How can we help our children through a simple drawing?
What an image can tell us
One of my greatest tools in working with children is a chart that simply has faces on it expressing different feelings. These faces include a range of feelings from feeling happy, sad, joy, calm. angry, embarrassed etc. Children just love choosing one to talk about how they feel on that day. This is a wonderful way of engaging with them easily, as often younger children have difficulty expressing their feelings.
I have other more sophisticated charts to express feelings but all our students choose the simpler, easy to translate chart. Parents may find such a chart a great tool at home in inviting children to talk about their emotions. It is visible, clearly understood and gives parents an easy access to the child's emotions. These charts can be obtained in some news agencies or can be drawn up at home and laminated. One again this is a visible, easy to understand way of expressing feelings.