- 18 Oct, 2024
- 0 Comments
- 2 Mins Read
Character Strengths.
Character development involves a child facing a challenge, drawing on character strengths to achieve that challenge, and succeed. This is actually what builds resilience, the ability to get over challenges. The more resilience you have the more likely you are to try new challenges, so it’s like a cycle Or meet challenges and succeed in said challenge. As long as the challenge is a ‘healthy’ one.
Google Images for character strengths and you will see plenty of images of the main 6 & their underlying attributes.
Print an image out and stick it somewhere you see it often so it’s easy to refer to and remember when you are having tough conversations with your children. These are the words you use when you are talking a child through a challenge.
If a child is frightened of trying something new you can choose your words from ‘courage’ – “you might need to be brave here. I know you can be brave because I’ve seen it before. Sometimes it’s hard to be brave but we can give it a go” (words to that effect).
In doing this we are building a child’s vocabulary so when they are feeling frustrated about something they have the words to use to help themselves.
Here’s a quick video to show you how you can draw a picture to help with your explanation.
Building a child’s vocabulary is super important for a number of reasons –
- To describe their feelings
- For use in conversations as they get older and dealing with more complex relationships
- To be able to use them when they are writing
- When they come across the words in books, they can read them because they know how to de-code the word but also they have the knowledge of that word
The sooner we teach children how to use the correct words the better it is for them as they grow.
What else does this have to do with speech?
Saying complex words is a bit like eating something tough – it gives our jaw, teeth and tongue a good workout. These are necessary for clear speech.
(Side note – eating tough food also helps keep a child’s teeth strong. Dentist’s are seeing a prevalence in having to cap children’s teeth and it’s not just because of sugar. It can actually be because they only snack and aren’t given a full meal that requires strenuous chewing to build up teeth strength. True story.)
Apart from saying complex words with challenging sounds, exercising the parts of our body we need for clear speech is also important. There are many, many exercises in the Say It Clearly manual to relax and prepare for speech as well as in all the courses in the Say It Clearly online school.
Plus. Hate to say it but the end of the year is looming and if helping a child out with their speech has been on your list of things to get on to, then do it now.
Here’s to a fabulous week, Miriam.