Motivating Kids (12)

Quotes are Great Gentle Reminders

One very gentle and effective way of reminding kids all the things I have mentioned before is to introduce them to quotes. When someone else has said something, your kids may find it easier to accept.

Quotes are an easy way to instill a thought, a belief or an idea. All you have to do is post it in a place where your kids can read it. In our house, some doors are full of quotes, our fridge is covered with them and even in the toilet there are poems and quotes that we want our kids to adopt (while they sit there and ponder about the universe…). Most of the quotes we have talk about character building, motivation, attitude, courage and self esteem. By reading them over and over again, the thoughts become part of our being.

When my young sister travelled to India and Thailand for six months, I bought her a journal and on every other page, I wrote a quote about travelling, about being safe and confident and about self discovery. She said that every time she wrote in her journal, the quotes I had written were the most appropriate for the emotional growth she was experiencing.

As you have already seen, I have collected many quotes and poems to motivate kids. I encourage you to print the ones you like the most and post them in places where you and your kids can see them often.

How to collect and use quotes to motivate your kids

Collect quotes that mean something to you. There are many quote sites on the Internet and many thousands of quotes in each of them, so search for any topic with the word "quotes" to find them
Make sure the quotes are suitable for your kids' ages - consider the topic and level of language to ensure the message is clear
If the quotes are in your head, it is best to get them out of there and display them where your kids can see them
Make sure your quotes are positive and not negative ("Love thy neighbor", not "Don't hate thy neighbor").
Stay away from sarcastic quotes - they may be funny on the surface, but their underlying message is about being powerless, helpless and hopeless
Come up with your own quotes. If you say something to your kids repeatedly, make it a quote. I have a quote that is only mine and my kids know this quote by heart - "My mommy loves me a million millions". I have said to my kids it so many times by now that if you come in the middle of the night and whisper "My mommy" in their ears, they will automatically mumble "loves me a million millions".
Make your quotes look attractive to get your kids' attention to them - use colored paper or lots of color, special fonts, bold print, images and stickers, make them big, 3-dimensional or laminated
By posting your quotes around the house, you can guarantee your kids will be exposed to them even when you are not physically next to them. Entrances, albums, showers, mirrors, doors, toilets and diaries are only some of the place where you can post your quotes

As always, come back and share your successes with everyone by posting a comment.

More gentle reminders next week,
Ronit

This post is part of the series Motivating Kids:

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May 21st, 2009 | Author: Ronit Baras

Posted in Kids / Children, Parenting, Personal Development | Tags: affirmations, communication, Emotional Intelligence, how to, inspiration, Kids / Children, motivation, parenting, personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement, Relationships / Marriage, success

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One thing I find is that there is so much push in childhood to be the "best" that often kids feel not so great about themselves even when they're just fine. My daughter is fantastic and excels at many things, but spends time and energy feeling bad about the things she's not great at. Most activities of grown up life don't require being the best, just doing well. Perhaps kids who are able to find a balance in childhood and not push for being the top are the ones who'll have an easier time finding that balance as adults. Perhaps one of the best ways to motivate kids is to find out what they are motivated by and support them on that.
http://www.ronitbaras.com/index.php/about/ Ronit Baras
Excel Help,
I guess the "Best" concept is the one that we need to be careful about. It is a form of perfectionism and as we all know, perfectionism is a disease of the mind. though I have to say that most of the time, if you check people's childhood, you will find that their parents were perfectionists and though they hated it, they pass it on to their kids. Never with bad intentions but thinking that this is probably the way to do things.
You are so right, we can excel and do well in many things, even be successful, extremely successful without being the best.
I am not sure we need to adopt the concept of being the "best" in adulthood. We are the best we can be, at all times and we need a bit of self acceptance to realize that life is not a competition.
Unfortunately, I ran a workshop in school today and gave the kids a task to complete, with many rules. The idea of the task was to find a solution. I divided the kids to groups and they really had to work hard to find a solution. Still, at the end of it, some kids were so disturbed by the fact I did not say who was the winner.
It is a shame!
finding kids strength and supporting it is a great way to motivate them.
thanks for the comment
Ronit