Behaviors That Characterize Healthy Initiative

Behaviors that characterize healthy initiative include: love to create and invent. My child is a very artsy person, she has always loved to draw, paint etc and she has always loved to do it free handed. Where she has always been a creative person in this way I developed this type of initiative by having art supplies at home and let her decide whether she wanted to color, paint, draw etc and I let her decided what she wanted to draw. Another behavior that characterizes healthy initiative is to take action and asserting themselves physically and socially. I developed this type of initiative by taking her to the park and doing obstacle courses in the house when it was raining so that it challenged her physically. It  developed her initiative as she chose what structures she played on at the playground and some of those physically challenged her because of height until she grew tall enough that it was no longer a challenge. I developed her initiative socially as I put her different social situations such as child care, church, play dates, meeting the children of new neighbors etc.

Children develop initiative through challenging limitations and adult control. Where I never allowed my child to disrespect me I did let her challenge rules. For example, I let her challenge her bedtime in the summer vs her bedtime during the school year. She also challenged it as so got older by asking for a later bedtime and also by asking for her curfew to be changed as she got older. These were never arguments or control issues she would just come to me and ask if where she was older if it could change and we would discuss and agree to change it to what we could both agree to. Sometimes it would be me who started the conversation. For example the transition from elementary to middle school would need a later bed time. I told her what I thought was fair, she thought something else would be and we discussed it until an agreed time was decided.

Children can develop initiative through playing and interacting with their peers. This helps them practice the ability to say what they want to play etc. When my child had friends over and I could tell they were disagreeing about something I wouldn't jump in and solve it I would give them time to solve it on their own and only interfered if she asked me or it got really loud. This allowed her the opportunity to develop the initiative to voice her opinion and problem solve.

One last behavior that characterizes healthy initiative is when children practice initiative by taking risks, exploring new things and working hard at any effort they see themselves as being successful with. Children are concerned with the end product and acquiring the skill, not meeting expectations set by adults. For example, my child wanted to learn how to make jewelry so I found someone who would teach her. She didn't learn to do it because she wanted to go sell it and earn money from it was just a skill she wanted to learn. She wanted the knowledge of how to do it and has made a lot of her jewelry and mine. It was the self-concept of knowing how and putting the effort into learning how and enjoying the process of it because it relaxed her, not her becoming a pro at it or as I said selling it for money.

These are just some of the behaviors that contribute to the development of a healthy initiative and some of the ways I developed it in my own child. How each parent develops it is as different as each child and the important thing is that it is done so that a child knows it's all right to be their own selves and develops a healthy attitude toward trying things and self-esteem by allowing children to take the initiative to decide for themselves in an age appropriate way.