Help your child gain self-confidence

Being a vital part of their process of self-confidence is a gift that you are giving them.

As a parent, there are things that we wish we could control. One of those is the way our child sees the world, especially when it comes to self-confidence. For children with special needs, this is one of the main problems. Small acts of bullying can harm them incredibly, and this, in turn, makes their lives complicated, as they don’t often grasp the reasons behind those behaviors. For them, the world is a great place, as for every child, but sometimes their peers don’t have that same opinion and look for ways to harm them. This undermines their self-confidence and makes them doubt their own behavior, making them feel frustrated and confused as to why they have to go through those things. Parents and caretakers alike can help them avoid those feelings, and increase their self-confidence, creating a protective shield against the mistreat of others, helping them understand and realize their true and endless potential.

Throughout the years I’ve seen many efforts to tackle the mistreat of the world. And among those, these are the ones that have stood out and that are proven to be effective for increasing confidence levels in children:

• Set the example: Children learn from parents, and if you don’t portray a confident image, your child will hardly have one. Improve yourself and you can see how his or her attitude will change instantly, as they’ll have a positive example of confidence at home.

• Use games as boosters: Playing and letting them win is a way to set their self-confidence. But beware, don’t think you always have to let them win while playing, but if you find alternatives that teach them something, your child will be even more grateful. Finding games that are hands-on, and that have results (finding something, building, drawing) helps them feel completely safe.

• Give positive feedback: Your child will always look up to you to find support. If you as a parent work in giving them a positive feedback, and using words as fuel for their imagination and confidence, you’ll be raising a happy child.

• Avoid comparison: Telling your child how other children does a thing and they don’t, is a sure way to undermine their self-worth. You need to be attentive of the language you use with them, avoid using derogatory terms to express about their actions and by all means avoid comparisons.

At Autism Soccer they look to increase children’s self-esteem through stimulant activities that will make them feel more confident and positive. With a personal and hands-on approach, they use sports as a tool to increase their connection with others and allow them to feel free in a safe environment. All this while giving them the much needed physical activity that will help them feel stronger and more energized while also helping them get rid of stress and self-doubt like only sports can do!

Kids need to trust themselves.

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Peer Pressure: How to Teach your Children to be Themselves

Children often feel pressured by classmates or peers in general to do things they don't want to do.

Teaching children how to face the challenges in their lives is not an easy feat. In fact, one of the concerns for parents, when their kids are in school-age, is how to teach their small children to deal with the pressure that other’s can put on them to do certain things. Although it’s less than obvious, kids mostly look for ways to contact and feel a sense of belonging in their classrooms. Doing the same thing as the others can lead to friendship, but in some cases, the complying nature of children can make them prone to be victims of peer pressure.

This can happen for a variety of reasons when it comes to what we know as bad behavior: it can go from simply skipping a classroom activity, to bullying other children as a result of being pressured by others kids with the promise to be accepted in a group. As you can see, there is a wide range of situations in which a child might feel compelled to bend to the will of a group, whether by fear or simply to feel like he belongs to something. What can you do to help him avoid these situations? The reality is that you are not with your child 24/7, and there’s no realistic way of pulling him out of these situations if it's not by dropping the child out from the normal school system and homeschooling him. For some parents, this might sound like a viable, however radical way of helping your child cope with peer pressure, but there are some other ways in which you can help him stand out by himself and avoid being pressured into doing things he doesn’t want to do.

For example, the group of children that play with your child wants to do something bad, like bullying another child. What will your kid do in this situation? This is when the education you give him will kicks in. Some will jump right into the action without thinking twice about it, guided by the mentality of bending to peer pressure. However, an assertive child will recognize the mistake in the behavior, and will more likely react against it, whether by looking for ways to deter the others from doing harm, or getting an adult involved in the situation to prevent it from escalating from that.

Here are a few simple ways to avoid peer pressure that you can teach your child:

• Let him be assertive.
• Show him the importance of saying “NO”.
• Make him walk away from situations they don’t feel comfortable.
• Instill the feeling of responsibility and liability in their actions.
• Ask him to contact other adults if he sees something strange.
• Let him know that it’s ok to be selective with friendships.

Teach your child to stand out and defend himself, as this is going to help him understand the situation in other people’s shoes and he’ll be more than willing to defend and stand up against peer pressure. One way to make him connect with other children in different environments is Autism Soccer. The fact that this organization reunites children with different special needs, makes it the perfect place to share and relate with others outside of school, helping your child form a strong and assertive personality with the help of sports.

Letting children know how important it is for them to be unique and true to themselves.

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The Best Techniques to Calm Your Children

You, as a parent, are responsible for helping them handle their emotions.

When children are under 5 years old tend to express their emotions in a less than productive way -although there are cases where this does not occur-. Among those emotions are: crying, pouting, ranting and so many other ways of expressing. And while it is normal for children to feel them, you, as parents and caretakers, need to take an extra step to help your kids become once again the ones who have control of how they feel. That’s why I want to share with you some tips to calm them down and let them express their emotions in a more controlled way.

First, you need to know as a parent how to prepare yourself for any problem your children may have. We know how difficult it can be to take care of them properly when they feel particularly aggressive or when they start crying wildly. But remember that it is you who make the last decision to give them a better education and teach them how to be better people.

That being said, let’s give you the best tips to calm your children:

• Put yourself in their level: Children’s number one complaint is that adults don’t understand them. In fact, this is true! To avoid this situation, put yourself on their level, visually. Get on you knees or sit them on a high chair to be at the same visual level.

• Make them elaborate: Putting their emotions into words is a great way to calm them down. Ranting and expressing themselves is one of the easiest ways to lower their stress levels.

• Teach them how to breathe: Making them breathe is a great way to let them focus on themselves. This has to be done carefully; my suggestion? Make them put their hands on a surface or on your shoulders to calm down.

• Be their model to follow: Teach children with your own behavior. Control your anger or frustration and express yourself in a coherent way. Do not have negative discussions or attitudes in front of them

Here are some tips you can use to make your children have a better and healthier behavior for you and for themselves. Remember that controlling your kids’ emotions will give them the ability to be more productive and positive in their day-to-day. To help them get rid of bad emotions that might plague them, there’s nothing better than sports, like the ones offered by Autism Soccer. Playing a sport will not only help them achieve their goals, but also increase their participation in group activities with a creative setting.

Guide your children's behavior in the right direction. Help them control themselves. 

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How to Handle Bullying to Prevent Children's Harassment

Bullying often happens in public settings, like schools. 

Children tend to play rough by giving each other monikers, or playing handheld games which are, sometimes, part of their normal behavior. But what happens when those names and ‘friendly jokes’ are more mean-spirited? In those situations, when a joke stops being equal and it turns into a humiliation, it’s called “bullying”.

While this is a mild concern for most parents, for the ones with children with special needs, this is one of the most constant worries. What if their child’s life drastically change because of that targeted attack? It is known that one of the most frequent causes for kid’s psychological problems and bad behavior are bullying or harassment they might be receiving from other children.   

What’s defined as “bullying”?

It’s defined as a targeted attack towards another person with an intention to harm, whether it is physical or psychological. In fact, ignoring a particular person is also recognized as a form of bullying. These behaviors can be shown by one or a group of kids and, most of the time, this happens without adults seeing it directly. Sometimes, children lead bullying to high levels and this might turn into targeted violence, which often leads to a long-lasting trauma for the ones who receive the attacks.  

How to handle bullying or harassment?

As parents and caretakers, your obligation is to teach your children that they can ask you for help if they are being attacked. While teachers and other students see what happens in real time, it’s your job to identify the signs of your child is being bullied. Some of those are:

• Personal items lost without explanation.
• Sleeping problems.
• Changes in personal habits.
• Decreased appetite.
• Loss of interest in personally enjoyable activities.
• Faking illness.
• Lesions (bruises and such).
• Diminished self-esteem.

How to help them face bullying?

Once you’ve been able to identify the problem, it’s time to take action. Parents need to give alternatives to their children that will help them feel safer and more trusting of each of their companions at school or other activities. For that reason, it’s important to get to the root of the problem by identifying the bully and knowing why they are acting that way. That’s why it’s vital to get the help from professors and psychologists. In fact, most of the time, when this happens, children that are expressing aggression towards others were harmed that way in the past, or they are reflecting behaviors from home.

What can you do to help them?

• Teach them they can count on you.
• Let them know it’s ok to seek help.
• Help them overcome the fear and show confidence.
• Teach them to stand up to bullies the right way.
• Involve bullies' parents.
• Get assistance from professionals (professors and psychopedagogy).

You, as a parent, need to prepare yourself to deal with children when it comes to their personal safety. Make sure to have the right skills to help them deal with bullying, and help them overcome those situations. One of the things that might help your children overcome that frustration and bad emotions is playing a sport. That’s why you need to contact Autism Soccer. They have a team of people who help children reach their full potential regardless of their condition and, also, they help them gain trust and confidence to face the world after that stressful period.

You, as a parent, need to be aware of the signs that indicate children's harassment to make it stop. 

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5 Secrets to Increase Your Child’s Self-Esteem

Help your children reach their whole potential with your help.

Children are inventive and imaginative, for that reason, their identity formation is very important their first years of life. It’s essential to help them live a life full of happiness and, also, it’s necessary to teach them the importance of sensitivity in terms of respect for other human beings. Not only you need to educate them in sciences, math and other academics subjects, but also help them reach their full potential with great self-esteem. This is especially important for children with special needs, because they are often vulnerable to the comments of other children or other people that are not usually harmful. Today, I’m going to teach you how you can make them impulse their self-esteem.

How can you impulse their self-esteem?

Now that you know the importance of children’s self-esteem, there’s a group of things you need to know before you start helping them in terms of self-esteem. One thing you have to remember is that each child is different, and if you think that he or she might be suffering from low self-esteem, you must take them to a children’s psychologist for further improvement.  

• Let them know that imperfection is okay: Teach children that perfection is not always the goal. Despite they did not reach the goal they wanted, they did their best. Don’t impulse perfectionist habits on them, so, let kids know that, sometimes, failing is as good as winning.
• Teach them the best: Adults are the role models for children, and you, as a parent or caretaker, need to act the right way to teach them good values. Control your emotions and work to use them in a more productive and positive way, and you’ll see great results on them.  
• Avoid comparisons: Each child is different even though they have some similar attitudes and skills. All adults should avoid comparisons between children because that might affect their feelings and self-esteem.
• Teach the power of language: Neuro-Linguistic programming is one of the many psychological techniques that affect people behavior and self-esteem. If you teach them that words have power (whether positive or negative), you will give them the tools to face adversities by their own, while boosting their self-appreciation.

Use these tools to help your child increase their self-esteem. It’s important to make your children happy and integrated into society without any assistance. With the right values from home, they can get the capacity to connect with the rest of the world. That’s exactly what Autism Soccer impulses, to work as a team with people that motivate children to reach their goals. Take advantage of the Autism Soccer practices to boost your child’s self-esteem and create moments that they will not forget!

Self-steem is a highly possitive quality that needs to be nourished in children.

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