The year is well underway and by now, your child’s batteries must have been recharged. Do you, as a parent, feel like you still have to discipline your child daily and your child is not behaving the way you want them to on their own? Well, maybe then it is time for them to hone a great skill – self-discipline. Here are 5 steps your child can take to master self-discipline.
#1 Pick ONE thing to focus on
For many students, multitasking is not an easy feat. Instead of trying to change or master more than one thing in their lives, we set children up for success when we allow them to give their full attention to the task at hand. You may also help your child break down larger tasks into smaller, more manageable chunks.
#2 What are their current beliefs and action steps?
One of the most crucial steps to mastering self-discipline is awareness. It is important to let your child reflect on the mental roadblocks that keep them from developing and maintaining good self-discipline.
Once we have brought awareness to these negative thoughts, you may encourage your child to think about the current action steps that they have or have not been taking in order to realise their goal of becoming more disciplined. One of the most common causes of failure is the bad habit of simply thinking about these action tasks, rather than actually completing them.
#3 Forgive yourself and visualise accomplishment
Possibly the biggest takeaway is to help your child to forgive themselves for not being where they want to be currently or for not taking action as initially planned. You may do so by zooming out and separating the person from the problem.
The power of the mind is often underestimated. Instead of focusing on their mistakes, encourage them to picture themselves already having completed a task and achieving their goal and desired result. Visualising success helps to prepare your child’s mind for success and gives them the boost of confidence they need to accomplish it.
#4 What are their new beliefs and action steps?
Once your child knows where they want to be and what they want to create discipline in, they would need to have new beliefs to support their new goals. Limiting or negative thoughts that they had should be uprooted. Instead, they should be replaced with good thoughts as positive thinking would help your child achieve their goals.
New action steps should support their goals in becoming more disciplined. Remember, it is crucial that your child breaks down larger tasks, into smaller, more achievable and actionable steps. These new action steps should also be realistic.
#5 Accountability and repeat
Find a way to make your child accountable for their new action steps. One useful tip is to make it a visual achievement. For instance, you could prepare a calendar and indicate the different tasks that they need to complete for the day. Once they have completed them, reward your child with a sticker. At the end of the month, you could check in with your child and monitor their progress.
Finally, once they have built self-discipline in one area, your child could repeat this process with the next thing. Remember to only focus on one thing at a time!
Adapted from: Yourmindsetmentor.com
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