In the words of Vince Lombardi, "Leaders are made, they are not born." We are all shaped by our experiences to become what we are today. If you have a child, it is never to early to start building those leadership skills to inspire self-confidence and put them on the path to success. Leadership skills are qualities children can aspire to and also share with and inspire others along the way. Through leadership skills you can encourage positive behavior, respect, patience, and creativity to name a few.
So...HOW DO WE TEACH OUR CHILDREN TO BECOME LEADERS?
COOL CATS Super Leadership 4 Kids has fun and easy to use products to cultivate leadership potential in your kids. They believe every child can be a leader with the right tools that will inspire, motivate, and challenge a child's highest potential. Using these products, you can easily talk to your child about leader qualities and why they are important tools to have as they are growing up. How can they use leader qualities at home with their parents? How can they be a leader at school? Most importantly, how can children use leader skills to build strong interpersonal communication with friends to form lasting relationships and bonds?
HOW DOES LEARNING TO LEAD BENEFIT YOUR CHILD?
Using the Cool Cats Lead tools like the poster, book, and card deck, your child can start defining what leadership means to them. Getting into deep discussions and utilizing the tools with your child encourages deeper thinking through descriptions of leadership characteristics. They also provide a chance for your child to brainstorm their own ways to apply those characteristics in real life. It is so important to empower them with the knowledge of ways they can be a leader.
Looking at the TOP TEN TIPS ON LEADERSHIP poster and pointing out traits your child might already have is a good way to start the discussion. Thinking of ways you as a parent can nurture your child to develop some of the leader traits is just as important. You can do fun things like print your child's favorite leadership quality on a t-shirt or your child can draw pictures of what being a leader looks like to them. Encouraging your child to be all they can be shows your children how much they are valued so have your child make a list of things they want to do or be when they are older. Allow them to use their imagination and don't worry if they make mistakes, this helps a child learn persistence and resiliency. Giving your child affirmations helps them build on those dreams of what they want to be. Don't forget to give your chid positive feedback as well whenever you see leader traits demonstrated at home, with friends, or at school.
IS MY CHILD A LEADER?
I have asked myself this question for the last 6 years and I still do not have an answer. I see qualities of leader skills in my daughter sometimes and other times I wonder what she is thinking. When I received the Cool Cat Leads tools I was excited to find out that this is the perfect time in my daughter's life to develop these skills (building blocks) and this is the perfect way to do it. First, I showed her the poster with the Top Ten Tips and we discussed which qualities she already has. I told her she was trustworthy and that I loved how she always told mommy the truth about things that happened, even if it meant she might get in trouble. I told her how I loved her inventiveness and imagination when she played with friends or even by herself. I think it is great that as an only child, she makes friends easily with everyone, likes to share, and likes to include everyone in her games. Finally, she has a high level of energy, the likes of which I have never seen before, and that SPIRIT is what inspires and motivates others around her. In short, like every mom, I think my daughter has some amazing qualities.
After I put her to bed that night, I tried to brainstorm ways to nurture her to develop some of the other leader skills. I decided to pick one skill each day to talk about in the car on the way home from school. We did that almost every day and after about a week, I noticed she would tell me a story of something she did at school that day that was like "being a leader". By talking about it casually so often, it had become part of her everyday thinking. I loved hearing about how she was using this skills in her friendships, other peer relationships, and even with the teachers.
Next, The Leadership Book: Building Blocks For Leaders was so much fun to look at and read together. It really explained ways to be a leader. We loved looking at the definitions and pictures together. After each page, we talked about how we could apply each trait to real life.
Finally, using the cards was the best. I carried them around with me to restaurants and whenever we had a few minutes with nothing to do, I pulled out a card and we defined that trait together, which we knew from reading the book. Then we used the space on the back and my daughter wrote (with my help) how she could apply that characteristic in real life or maybe already had. My daughter's 2 favorite ones were #19 and #20, LAUGH and BE A FRIEND! She does both!
At first glance, all of these tools seemed a little too advanced for my six year old, but what I discovered through experimentation was how talking about each individual leader skill by itself and discussing it over and over in different ways, helped my daughter really understand the deeper meaning of each trait. She wanted to learn how to be a positive influence! She wanted to build her confidence! Most importantly, she wanted new challenges. This was a great thing to discover. We often feel like our kids are doing too much and have too many activities, extra-curricular classes, or playdates, but they want to be challenged and grow as little individuals. It is so important to their health and well-being to start encouraging all these positive things in their life now and give them the tools to be successful adults. I think the COOL CAT LEADS is a great product and I would for sure encourage parents and teachers to implement them in the home and classroom. Every child needs to be a leader! It could revolutionize the world!
I was given the COOL CATS Super Leadership 4 Kids set, but all opinions are my own. You can find COOLCATSLEAD products at www.coolcatslead.com to help your child become a leader.
