Many kids love learning long words and what they mean. Today I introduced what philosophy is to my Girl Power group, philo meaning 'love' and sophy - 'wisdom'. We discussed what wisdom is and how it can benefit your life by helping you make more sensible decisions, be kinder to others, stay calm, and be accepting.
We looked at different scenarios, starting with imagining two mums who have lost their keys. One mum is dealing with the situation in an unwise way, and the other deals with it in a wise way. The unwise way would be shouting at and accusing others in the house for moving the keys (yep we've all been there), getting into a panic, or moaning and calling herself an idiot. We are all human and this can happen but it is important to remember that children are little sponges and watching everything. When we are being emotionally unregulated so are the children.
The wise mum tells herself that keys get lost sometimes and that she must have put them somewhere. She thinks back to which coat she was wearing or which bag she was using. She may even laugh about how silly she was to forget where she had put them.
We then looked at different scenarios where kids tend to make unwise choices such as when they lose a game, or a friend hasn't been very nice to them, or maybe they don't want to go to bed, or don't like their dinner. We had super discussions today about how they could manage these difficult situations in a wiser way.
Young girls' main problems growing up often revolve around friendships. The most common issue a parent may hear is that a friend has been unkind them. Today, an 8 year old said that a wise way to deal with unkind words would be to tell the friend calmly that they have hurt their feeling and to please stop. In the class, we added on to this: to ask what's wrong or to wonder what may be upsetting the friend. When someone is unkind there is usually a reason and it is not always the child's fault. Realising this can help a child with self-esteem.
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