We’ve talked about what we as parents can do and the theory behind the whole thing, but what real, daily activities actually help children grow into leaders? For the third and final installment of this month’s series, Raising Children to be Leaders, I put together a list of five key action steps — activities you can encourage your children to do which will, when practiced regularly, develop major leadership qualities.
1. Communication! Ask your child to speak their thoughts out loud.
The core foundation of leadership is communication and the ability to open one’s mouth and have intelligent language come out. The ability to hear themselves think, to have to articulate a position or opinion and to provide more than a one-word response starts to exercise their cognitive muscle. This isn’t about being right, it’s about practicing the art of forming thoughts and ideas into words with tone, inflection and intonation. It’s amazing what happens when a kid hears themselves say something profound and intelligent.
2. Make Decisions! Encourage your child to make their own decisions at every opportunity, and have the patience for them to do so.
This can be hard for adults because it takes time. Kids can be very slow at making decisions and need time to discern options, figure out how they feel about those options, and then actually make the choice. As a result, too many adults are impatient and end up either making the decision for the kid, or giving them such simple options that no real learning occurs.
3. Read Up! Encourage reading at a very young age.
Study after study touts the benefits of reading for language and learning development, but there are even more benefits for growing leaders. Reading exposes you to new and different ways of thinking in a structured, sentence-assembled way. It doesn’t matter if your child agrees with what they read. In fact, disagreement is great because it gives you a chance to practice #1 on this list! And reading the book “A Long Walk To Water” is what sparked my daughter Sarah intoher fund raising venture.
4. Brainstorm Solutions! For every problem faced, ask your child to brainstorm a list of solutions instead of dwelling on what can’t be done.
It’s easy to name a problem and to complain about something, but solutions are the instruments of great leaders. Problems are pessimistic and leave us looking at each other saying “Now what?” Solutions, on the other hand, spark us into action. Solutions are optimistic, positive, and creative, and that is a mindset that can be learned through practice.
5. Make Vision Boards!
What’s one of the core skills of a leader? Vision! Start your kids early on visualizing their life, even their day. You can do role play with them, or another fun activity is to create boards with pictures and powerful words epitomizing their dreams. If they can’t see it, they can’t achieve it. Most of us were never taught how to envision the future we can create; instead we look backwards as if the answers to tomorrow live in the limitations of yesterday. That’s not vision. Vision creates, vision dreams and once the vision sees what is possible, leaders can’t help but take steps to bring that vision to life.
