Let’s talk about how to teach you kids to ask for help. While we do want to teach our kids to be independent, there is also an art to asking for help and they need to learn that. After all, they’re still little kids and even us adults need to ask for help from time to time.
We want our preschoolers to know the difference between asking for help sharpening a pencil (something they can easily do on their own) and asking for help on an assignment because they don’t understand how to do it.
So how do we do this? There are 3 steps that will help you teach your child to feel confident asking for help.
Be Responsive
When your preschooler asks for help, help them.
Make sure they know that when they ask for help, help will be given. Even for the things you know they can do for themselves, though we will talk more about that below. This will teach them that asking for help leads to positive outcomes.
Be Welcoming
When your preschooler asks for help, make sure you respond kindly.
If your child is met with a negative attitude after asking for help, they are likely going to think, ‘Why bother?’ Having a positive attitude about helping your child will assure them that asking for help was the right thing to do and will give them the confidence to ask for help in the future.
Be Assuring and Give Them Confidence
Most preschooler’s want to be independent and will naturally ask for less and less help. In fact, they will likely get to a stage where they tell you not to help them. However, there are certainly times when your child will ask you to help with something you know they are capable of doing on their own. In these cases, rather than simply telling them, “No, you can do it yourself,” try building their confidence to do it themselves. Instead, you can say:
- “You can do it, I know you can! Let me see you try.”
- “How about we do it together”
- “I’ll show you how to do it and then you try”.
If they insist or they try and fail say, “Okay, let’s do it together.” This way you can slowly scaffold or build the skill as you do less and less and they take over more responsibility.
Teaching your kids to ask for Help and Kindergarten Readiness
Overall, we want our kiddos to feel comfortable asking for help as everyone asks for help at some point or another while we teach them to be independent.
Read more about social skills needed for kindergarten here
Read more about academic skills needed for kindergarten here
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