Giving Children the Ability to Cope

Coping skills are used as achieving success or being able to cope in any subject.This is from the existence of man

yana appears in many ways.

The primitive coping skills that begin to develop with the birth of a person are basically “run or fight”. Children are the best representatives of this. Children diversify and develop these skills that they have acquired over time with the experiences they have had and the attitudes and behaviors shown by their parents, and they terminate those that do not work. At this point, it is a big question mark how we should give our children the right coping ability. The best way to understand this is to understand how and where children learn ways to cope.

Children learn coping skills in different ways. These;

Parental attitudes
Media tools
It’s a way of trial and error.
Parental attitudes: As I mentioned in my previous article, children learn new attitudes and behaviors by observing the other person and taking the behavior as a role model. For this reason, the ability of parents to cope with events is directly related to the coping abilities of children. For this reason, the acquisition and implementation of healthy coping methods by parents first will make it easier for their children to acquire these skills.
Media tools: One of the issues that we have been focusing on frequently in recent days is screen and internet use in children. Children take the coping skills of people they see through the media or cartoon, book or game characters as an example at least as much as parental attitudes. For this reason, it will be useful to communicate with children by restricting screen use or by using the sample character.
Trial and error way: As with adults, children want to try out the coping methods they have acquired and see if they are appropriate. Some people can put it more coolly, while others need physical activity or sensory stimuli. The important thing here is that the child is recognized by the family and the correct guidance is made according to his needs.
How should we give children coping skills?

Let them lose.
Tell the truth.
Put difficulties in front of them.
Be stable.
Let them lose! Do you know that children have to lose in order to be successful both academically and socially in later life? You should create environments where they should make mistakes, learn from their mistakes and learn to apologize or forgive when necessary. For this, all you need to do is to offer a loving and reliable environment.
Tell the truth! You can tell children that they may encounter difficulties in life and that they need to cope with these situations. In the course of daily life, you can make them a topic and share them with them. You can easily say that they will be difficult to ride a bicycle at first, but then they can learn, or you can tell them at a family dinner about a topic that you are having difficulty with as a parent during the day. In this way, the child will see that not only himself, but also many people around him are struggling with difficulties, and he will realize that he is not alone.
Put difficulties in front of them! Give responsibilities to your children. Let them tidy up their rooms, water the flowers, help you clean the house. Even if they do it wrong, let them. In this way, remember that you are also teaching your children to take responsibility and patiently fulfill these responsibilities by consciously giving them tasks that they are forced to do.
Be stable! If you want to raise a responsible, real adult, all you have to do is apply what we have listed above consistently. Actually, it’s the most difficult, but that’s the most important, isn’t it? Remember, everything takes time and learning takes process. For this reason, take time to teach your children the right behavior.
l Mod Bodrum College

PDR Unit