16 Mar 3 things you can teach your kids using your photos.
Respect, responsibility, resilience – the holy grail of things most parents want to teach their kids.
I asked myself how can I find ways to build these with my own children.
Ways that are easy, engaging and interesting.
In this blog I talk about 3 ways we believe that PHOTOS can help demonstrate or teach children three essential life skills.
As a Certified Pro with The Photo Managers we get wonderful opportunities for Professional Development. One opportunity was a webinar run by Parenting expert Deborah Gilboa, MD (popularly known as Dr. G) and she spoke about the “other” three R’s.
RESPECT | RESPONSIBILITY | RESILIENCE
Straight away I knew these were really important characteristics that I want my children to have. Wonderful teachers at our schools will teach the standard three R’s, it is my job as a parent to teach them the other three! This links closely to the concept of asking ‘do you know’ questions that we talked about in the past.
Learning about RESPECT from Photos
Photos reinforce what matters, we show our kids what we respect by what we photograph. For example we take photos as a family group together at a family celebration as such we show them that we respect our family. What we photograph shows what we value, so spending time together as a family is important to us.
This is one of my favourite photos. It is me showing my 86 year old aunt how to take a selfie and when I look back on it I am reminded of the importance of my family connections. It shows the respect that I have and the respect I want to teach to my children.
Learning about RESPONSIBILITY from photos
Photos show what we value. Looking through old photos with the kids they might notice that there are a number of photos taken of your work colleagues. It shows that work is important. Just having the photos TO SHOW. Photos that are organised or in albums shows them that you were responsible, they might not recognise or appreciate it now but one day they will be grateful. My two love looking through the photo books I have made for them, my daughter has been known to fall asleep with one in her hands. I truly believe that one day they will be thankful for me taking the responsibility of documenting and displaying their childhood in photo books.
Learning about RESILIENCE from photos
Nothing teaches resilience like trying something new. If you think about it we are constantly taking photos of ourselves and of our family trying something new. The first bike ride, first steps (if you are quick), first train ride, first camping holiday. By doing that we remind our kids of trying new things. It might remind them that they used to be terrified of riding the bike without training wheels but that they kept trying and they did it. Demonstrating to them that they can be resilient and that you value that characteristic in them! Remembering how they behaved (they fell a few times but got back up and kept trying) is more important than remembering how they felt (the fear they felt was overcome). Showing them a photo of that shows them how proud we are of them for being resilient.
By organising your photos you are giving yourself the opportunity to demonstrate and teach respect, responsibility and resilience.
I bet you didn’t realise photo organising could help with solutions to some common parenting challenges! Maybe you are already doing this. Comment below if you are using any of these ideas with your kids.
Have a magical day
Mara
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