5 Ways to Inspire Children as an Educator

As a teacher and educator, you can have a major influence on the children that you care for as they are growing up. They look up to you and will look to you for guidance and as someone who has the answers to all of their questions. Although they may not always want to listen to you, this doesn’t mean they don't respect you, the things you say, and the way that you act. Inspiration and creativity are extremely important areas that children need to develop in. Both will be needed in their future as they think about what they want to become when they grow older and how hard they will work to get there. Here are 5 things that you can do to help inspire your children.

Be a Role Model

One of the most important things that you can do for a child is be a good role model. Especially with really young children, you can notice the way they listen to and copy other people. When you first hear their echo you wonder to yourself, how do they possibly know that? Then often you will realize that you were just talking about the exact topic only days ago. Although you thought they were busy playing and not paying attention to you, little did you know they were listening. With this being common behaviour among young children, you must be careful in the way you act and the things that you talk about around them. You will soon find the same attitude, actions and language coming from them. Stay positive around children, be upbuilding and kind to others and you will soon find the children following your lead.

Show Support

Another way to help inspire children is to support them. Children have crazy imaginations, they have dreams, and they talk about the future like they have it all figured out. If you’re pessimistic and shoot down their dreams and ambitions, this will only destroy their confidence and kill their enthusiasm. Ask them what they want to do and why? Then when they tell you, take the time to explain to them what it will take to get where they aspire to be. Show them that you support them in their ideas and you believe in them. This will encourage them to dream big and with confidence many can and will achieve what others may not have thought possible.

Allow them to learn from failure

This may sound negative, but another beneficial exercise is to encourage children to embrace mistakes or failure. This is a crucial skill to learn early in life and is better developed when children are young. Allowing children to make mistakes provides you with an opportunity to teach them to see the consequences of their mistakes and how the can learn from them and prevent them from happening again. Explain to them how they can better deal with the situation the next time and help them overcome their fear of making mistakes. Learning this skill at a young age will help them be prepared to deal with mistakes and failure that may come later in life.

Alone time

Unobstructed play time is extremely heathy for children. Allow children time alone to be creative and play with different toys. Don’t sit there telling then what to do with the toy and how to use it. Let their imagination do the work. Children need time alone to work with their imagination, which in turn will help inspire them to try new things and be open minded.

Ask Questions

Finally, a healthy mental process for children is to ask them open ended questions. Don’t immediately tell them what something is and how it works. First ask them what they think about it, and how they think it works. Then teach them how it really works in an upbuilding conversation with them. This is a much healthier learning process and is much more effective in their ongoing mental development and growth.