Actively working with children is a lot different than working with adults. Even the difference between working with younger kids and older kids is substantial. And it’s not as simple as making sure you have your employers liability insurance nanny in place. If you are looking to work with children of any age, here are some of the skills you will need to work on and develop.
Develop Your Patience
One of the main things you need to do is work on your patience. Keep in mind, children aren’t the same as adults. There are many differences in the way they process things. Because of this, being able to bridge the gap between what you know and what they know is bound to frustrate you. It is going to cause you to have to repeat yourself many times. You will need to explain yourself frequently. You will have to deal with a bunch of distractions and a lot of things that take away their focus. Thus, you will need to develop a lot of patience to keep yourself from getting too frustrated.
Hide Any Frustration
Kids are capable of picking up your frustration. Therefore, you want to try to keep an even demeanour. Knowing how to avoid showcasing your frustration is key. You don’t necessarily have to be extremely happy at all times. It is perfectly fine to let a child know that you aren’t necessarily happy with them at the moment. Doing things like groaning when they ask you to repeat something or read something over again so they can understand can demoralise them. Therefore, try to learn how to effectively hide it.
Remain Calm
A lot of kids will look at how you react to something to figure out how they should react. As a result, if you react poorly to a stressful situation, it is only going to make it worse for the kid’s reaction. Try to learn how to keep your cool when things go wrong. Even if your heart is pounding, you need to try to learn how to keep up a poker face.
Enhance Your Communication
A lot of adults mistakenly assume they have to “dumb things down” for kids to understand. While it’s true, kids do need things broken down in a simple way, it doesn’t mean you have to “dumb it down.” Instead, you want to find ways that kids will be able to relate to. This can help them understand what you are trying to explain to them and teach them. By finding examples that they relate to, you should be able to help them understand more complex concepts.
Work on Your Enthusiasm
If you want to be successful working with children, you need to have a genuine enthusiasm for it. You need to enjoy working with kids because they can sense when you are uncomfortable or not genuine. You want to showcase a level of enthusiasm about what you are teaching them so they are going to be excited about learning it.
There are plenty of skills that you will want to work on when you are looking to succeed with your efforts of working with children.
