Teaching Perseverance with
Perseverance is an important value and needs to be encouraged in most of us. Do’er Duck is one of the nine Characters of Character, earning a National Promising Practice Award the creator Joni Downey then formed the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Talk about perseverance! Joni soon discovered the hard work, time and commitment that goes into running a nonprofit organization. Like everything in life, when you believe in something or someone you continue to invest yourself, to grow, to learn and to never give up. Let’s talk about Do’er Duck and perseverance!
Tips on how to teach children to persevere:
FAIL! Yes, fail. We all have, do and will through out our lives. The important thing is how we react to failure. When a child fails at a task it may be the end of the world to them. Don’t dismiss their feelings. Instead, hear them out and then turn that frown upside down by encouraging them, encourage them to try it again. This time, they may do it a little different, point out the ways they will succeed at their past failure and allow them to do it again, and maybe even again until they feel confident in their win!
COMMUNICATE. Talk with your children about what it means to persevere, you may even share a story or two of your own experience of failure and how you overcame it and tried again with success. While your child’s failure may seem petty to you, it means a lot to them. Talk about it, let them share with you what is bothering them about their situation. This will also help them to see you as human! Sometimes we don’t realize that our children look up to us and that failure is part of growth. When your children hear about your own stories, or when they see you fail at something but you kept going and figured it out will be encouraging to them. You might bring in someone that they look up to themself and share a story about them and the fact that they overcame their failure because they kept on trying. They practiced, they learned and they grew. The biggest obstacle here is to teach your children to NEVER GIVE UP!
ENCOURAGE! Encourage your child to try again, they may have had a melt down from their failure, redirect them to try again but in a different way. Whatever you do, DON’T say things like, “I knew you couldn’t do it” instead, say something like, “Let’s try this again” and maybe do it a different way. You’re not teaching your child to also develop better coping skills. Instead of just throwing in the towel as one would say, you’re redirecting them into a growth mindset, to problem solve and to NEVER GIVE UP! While a task may be difficult today, with perseverance you’ll go a long, long way!
Do’er Duck has a Certificate of Achievement and you can print it here to present to your child! Who doesn’t like some praise! Let them color it and be sure to display this accomplishment!
Children may relate to a character better than they relate to us at times and that’s okay. The important thing is that a child communicates with us. Communications may look different for each one of us as some of us:
Auditory learners are all ears. They tend to prefer listening to information rather than reading it or seeing it visually displayed. If your child is an auditory learner, be sure to be a role mode because they are listening to the words you use. Don’t throw in the towel, keep trying and trying and trying, Never Give Up!
Visual. A majority of learners are visual, or spatial, learners. Visual learners connect well with patterns, shapes, graphs, maps, and charts. If your child is a visual learner, use a lot of visuals to encourage them to try again and to Never Give Up!
Reading and writing learners are extremely comfortable with the written word. If your child likes to read and write, encourage them to read books on perseverance and write about their own experiences and of course, to Never Give Up!
Kinesthetic learners, also known as tactile learners, prefer to learn through hands-on methods. If your child is a hands on learner, allow them to do so, to fail and continue to encourage them to Never Give Up!