Sport to Life Lesson of The Week
Grow #1: Knowing Myself
The goal of this lesson is to help kids identify their uniqueness and skill sets and how that impacts the way they play and grow.
It's important that kids understand what makes them unique and special and how that can impact the way they play!
By understanding this lesson, kids benefit from improved self-esteem, improved emotional regulation, a growth mindset, and stronger relationships.
We learned to implement this with the use of challenges during play that encouraged kids to learn more about themselves in an exciting and rewarding way. Some of these include..
My Superpower: Encourages kids to consider what their superpower might be. In reality, it's just their strength, so if they can't think of one, build them up by telling them a strength you know they have.
Goal setter: Encourage kids to make goals, but make sure these are process goals and not outcome goals. For example, instead of “I want to score five goals tomorrow” (outcome goal), they can set goals like “I want to roll the puck with my stick so my shots are more accurate.” It all comes down to choosing goals that are within your control and not ones that depend on external factors.
What shakes me up? Encourage kids to think of things that might shake them up and hold them back, and then help them find ways to distance themselves from that. Keep in mind, they might not know what shakes them up and might need help figuring it out.
I feel *blank* when *blank*: Make them reflect on their emotions in certain moments using “ I- “ statements, for example, “I feel mad when I get hit with the ball in dodgeball”.
Next step: Big words like ‘process’ and ‘growth’ might be too big for kids to understand, so break them down into simpler ones like ‘next step’. Small steps like “ I want to learn to pass with my weak foot”.
Of course, kids may need some extra help in learning this lesson through the challenges we've given them. That's why we learned that there are adaptations that we can do to these lessons to help kids master them and understand the lesson of the day.
