Happy New Year

Happy New Year! I hope 2019 is full of happiness and great memories are made for all of you. Enjoy!

New year's day

Merrry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone. Hope everyone enjoys time with family.

Handel's Messiah

Self-Efficacy and Developing Self-Worth

Another important quality of self-efficacy is how children see their self-worth. Children need to see themselves as capable, intelligent human beings. Parents can help a child learn what those things are, what they're good at. Models of success are powerful, especially models who are similar in age. For children, other children are powerful models. If my friend can achieve a good grade on their writing test than so can I.

What we say matters because if a parent tells a child they can't do something the child is going to believe it. If a parent tells a child they can do something they'll believe it. What we says matters! We need to encourage children and we need to encourage them to learn what they are capable of doing and being secure with the things they aren't so good at. When we use words that convey a belief in oneself children are more likely to succeed and this has a positive impact on how they see themselves and what they accomplish.

Self-Efficacy and the Community

Teachers, coaches, youth group leaders who have high self-efficacy are more willing to experiment with new ideas and teaching strategies. They have high expectations and set high goals for children and exert more into caring and involvement with children. Therefore, self-efficacy affects choices, goals, effort and persistence.

Parents, siblings, teachers, coaches and other people in a child's community can help elevate self-efficacy in many ways.  They can set up easy to attain situations so that children can learn how to complete a task by first completing smaller sections of tasks and breaking the project down to something that is more manageable. Adults can model appropriate behavior that helps motivate children to participate in activities and succeed in them. The more encouragement a child receives at home and school the more self-efficacy they'll have. The more self-efficacy a child has the more likely they'll grow up to be successful happy adults.

When my child was growing up she had youth leaders who helped her set goals. They helped her write them down and then they framed it so she could put it in her room and see the goals she set for herself. It reflected her choices, her goals and what she would do to accomplish them. Some of them were still in college themselves and helped set the goal of college for herself and the importance of education. They supported her in her choices and goals and helped her achieve them in ways that only they could because she felt how much they cared and saw they were willing to help her achieve her goals.

The building of self-efficacy needs the help, encouragement, love and support of many.

Self-Efficacy and Developmental Delays

We know that children learn differently and children with developmental delays struggle far more with learning than others do. Those children who struggle need a feeling of success that they can achieve an activity. When a child's progress is viewed based on their own learning, not somebody's else's, this helps develop self-efficacy. Children shouldn't be expected to be good at everything. It's important for children to learn and to be challenged and they should be allowed to be successful in some areas and struggle with others. A child who excels at learning how to read but struggles in sports should be given more leeway in gym class. A child who  likes art but has problems focusing should be acknowledged for the art they are developing while being supported to find ways to focus on a task. A child needs to learn that they are good at everything. When a child learns this they don't put pressure on themselves to be good at everything. Parents need to tell children it's acceptable not to be good at everything and help children find things they are good at.

At the first center I worked at I had a child who had spina bifida. She couldn't walk, or crawl (she did learn to do a sort of army crawl but never a real crawl). I had to carry her everywhere or put her in a wagon to get her outside. She had a wheel chair she had to learn to use to get around and I had to find ways to help her feel included and capable of doing the same activities as the other children. She couldn't stand so she couldn't stand at the sensory table and do activities at the sensory table so I had to put the same activity in a smaller container, sit her on the floor with the container in her reach and let her do the activity that way. This helped her feel included, the activity didn't need to change for her it just needed to be modified. By doing this I based her learning on her own learning style and helped her develop self-efficacy in the way it needed to be developed for her.

By modifying the activities for her I didn't expect her to be good at everything but I acknowledged the challenges she had and found ways for her to be successful while struggling in the areas she did struggle in. I allowed the leeway she needed but supported her to find a way to do the same tasks as her friends. Dealing with Special Ed children takes a very special kind of person because of the challenges those children have. Where I have over the years had children in my classroom to take care of who have had challenges I'm not the kind of person who could deal with the challenges these children face on a daily basis and am thankful for the people who can.