With today’s technological influence, humility is becoming an increasingly rare trait for children to develop as they grow up. Right from the start, many kids are brought up in front of a screen and video games, with social media being a huge part of their life. They watch their friends post photos of themselves, brag and craft a high-end lifestyle that may not indeed exist. Gradually, your children begin to over-value the number of followers they have and how many likes they gather on their social media uploads. Eventually, they channel their minds to curating a lifestyle that photographs well for their friends, making them forget essential virtues such as humility. As the digital age progresses, the upcoming generation is obliviously developing inflated egos and self-esteem that could end up breaking them. As a parent, it is your responsibility to ensure that your kids grow differently by teaching them there is more to life than followers.
Bring their attention to other people
Nowadays, the digital presence encourages children to only think about themselves and to make cynical decisions. If you overly praise their achievements, you may make them feel superior to everyone else. On the other hand, you can foster a sense of humility in your child by diverting their attention to other people. For instance, you could accomplish this by pointing out someone who has achieved a lot and did not brag. This would teach your child to incorporate others in their thoughts, thereby thinking beyond themselves and starting to recognise others’ achievements.
Teach them about self-worth and the importance of apologising
Most children believe that their online status dictates their value. However, true worth should be determined by skills, character, strengths, achievements, and passions. As a parent, you can emphasise where self-worth comes from. While at it, give them specific examples and scenarios of how to excel and why these aspects are critical. Similarly, every child is bound to make a mistake that warrants an apology, either publicly or privately. As such, you should not forget to teach them the importance of apologising when wrong and how to respond to peers’ feedback.
Cultivating humility in your children during the digital era can be quite a tedious task that requires patience. Parents should do their part to encourage a humble mindset by discussing important life lessons with their kids. While it may take some time to reflect the desired results, you can start by showing them the importance of dependency and true friendship. This way, they will drop the spirit of meaningless competition and embrace teamwork.
This article was written by Sally Sykes with additional information from Kidspot NZ. Sally is a freelance writer who left her corporate job for a life of freedom. She regularly travels with her family and absolutely loves camping in the great outdoors.
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I often think children get caught up in their games etc that they don’t realise what they are saying. A boy my son plays with is often hurt by another boy they play with, who is supposedly a friend at school, by the things he says. Even my son has been hurt by the things people say online. We have limited the amount of time on devices to certain days, and have constant discussions about who they are playing with online in order to try and teach good online behaviours.
Humility is a big one. I’ve listen to my son play on his games and listen to how they talk to one another and its disgusting. They all seem to be getting excited about trashing one another. My son thinks is fun and doesn’t let the comments get to him but im sure they must deep down so as soon as I hear it I stop him from playing with those people and we have had many talks about talking to others as you would like them to talk to you. Its so rife these days, not like our days.
It is important to establish good foundations and rules within the family. We have to accept that we are live in a digital era, it’s how we respond in this world is what makes a difference. Parents also need to role model more often we are also hooked with our phones…on social media, on games etc. It’s tough coz it’s part of our everyday lives that we forget that we are on it 24/7.
I agree that learning about humility and making good choices around empathy etc are super important. It’s about having conversations with your kids about the things that really matter. I dont necessarily think screens and social media are fully to blame. Like-chasing can lead to a lack of realism but we talk at home about the reality and what we present. Heck, we film in a messy bedroom on the only clear wall 😂 shhh don’t tell anyone 🤐
Good article 🙂 My daughter is nearly 6 and gets very limited time on the tablet and is only allowed on certain things eg Kidstube. I do notice though that sometimes if she is on it and she has to get off, she can get a bit titchy because she isn’t ready to stop yet. We try to teach her some humility as it is important, if she does something not nice to one of us she is made to apologise I think that’s important. She once was touching stuff in a store (after we asked her not to) and she knocked something over and it broke. We made her go and find the manager and apologise, she didn’t like it one bit and she was embarrassed and cried. Now some people might think that’s mean, but it’s important. The store manager was great, he got down on one knee to her level and asked her if she had done it on purpose, she said no and he said well, that’s ok and I accept your apology 🙂
My son is shocking with technology. My daughter not so bad but you can be speaking to my son while he’s on you tube on the tablet and he won’t hear until you are yelling his name. This technology has became a complete joke.