Positive Psychology For Kids : The 6 Vital Skills

Developing resilience in childhood is crucial to inoculate against depression in adulthood and has the added benefit of empowered childhood years too.

Here are the main 6 vital skills I've taught clients of all ages and strive to teach my children daily .....

1) Be imperfect. Every human being is imperfect. Make a mistake each day and learn from it. Celebrate your mistakes, it means you're learning something.

2) Allow other people to be imperfect too. If we learn to lower the bar for those around us, we are allowing others to be human too. Friends will forget to call back, waiters will forget the shake, siblings will do mean stuff. . It's okay if the world doesn't smile upon us 24/7.

3) Let Them Own It. Some people in our lives are not just imperfect, they can be mean too. Then we Let Them Own It. The angry driver honking Mom on the highway ...Let Them Own It. The mean girl in the playground .... Let Them Own It. And the bossy big brother who wont let you hang out in his room .... Let Him Own It too.

4) Know your own strengths and weaknesses. Are you a computer whiz ? Great at trivia ? Worlds quickest texter ? What are you good at ? Identify your key areas. Now be brutal ... what are you not naturally good at ? Spelling ? Foreign languages ? It's perfectly normal to not be able to do it all. However, if there is an area you would like to get better in, think of lucrative ways to make it happen. It is also useful to know your personality strengths and weaknesses. There are free quizzes online by Dr Seligman to help identify them.

5) Take good care of yourself. There's no rocket science over here, just if you want to maximize your strengths you have to give yourself the strength the do it.
Here are the big 5
1) Eat well (think protein), don't let more than 3 hours pass without eating.
2) Drink water, lots of it.
3) Choose your exercise of choice, daily.
4) Get to sleep on time more often than not.
5) Be proactive about healthcare and dental care

6) Learn to trust yourself. With self confidence ie confidence in the ability to live with yourself you will go far. Allow yourself to make mistakes, don't punish yourself. Learn to re-trust yourself in small increments. Celebrate small steps and don't be scared to dream real big. Just break the journey down into small bite size steps.