Top 10 Ways To Empower Children To Pursue Big Dreams
Every child has big dreams they want to achieve. And they need our help, encouragement, and support to achieve them. You may have been encouraged to follow your own dreams as a child or discouraged. You may only be following your dreams now as an adult.
Regardless of your own experience, it’s your time to be the hero and nurture the gift, unique talent, and skills of your children through these Top 10 ways to empower children to pursue big dreams.
Having a big goal is one of the ways we can keep our kids out of trouble. When they believe they can do something important and contribute positively to their community and the world around them, it pushes them to focus.
If you’re a parent, you have a responsibility to draw your kiddos’ gifts out of them and build them up to do big things.
As our kids pursue bigger goals it builds their character and makes them mentally strong. They know and understand that they have to push through any challenges or setbacks to get to where they want to go.
Top 10 ways to empower children to pursue big dreams
Children are our biggest blessing. One of the ways we can help them gain confidence is to help them figure out what they’re good at, what their dream is, and how to achieve them with hard work, commitment, and dedication.
When our children win in the race of life, we win too. When we encourage them not nag them, keep an open mind, and support their life goals or career goals, we don’t become the bad guys but their biggest cheerleaders in life.
What’s the secret sauce of it all? It starts with you. As you’re intentional in your child’s journey to discovering who they are and what they want to do, your own journey, interests, vision, and goals become important too.
So how do we empower our children to set and crush their goals and dreams? These are the Top 10 ways to empower children to pursue big dreams.
Show interest in your child
The first thing you need to do as a parent is to show interest in your child. What are the various things that they like? What don’t they like? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
Take an interest in their gifts, and skills. Talk to your child. Use open-ended questions so you don’t lead them on. Share your own dreams with them and ask them to share theirs.
Allow your children to try different things
On your child’s journey, they will continue to grow and evolve. In kindergarten, they’ll want to be a pilot and by the time they’re in high school, they want to be a rock star.
Even if your kids have a clear and specific dream at a young age, they need exposure to lots of different environments and activities to find out more about the world and what it has to offer.
This can be a fun discovery process of their unique talents that you go along with them. Buy them art materials, expose them to various musical instruments, engage in imaginative play, try different sports, and be curious about what they like or don’t.
Observe them and keep an open mind through the process. Allow them to be bored and try new things. Some of the greatest ideas were born out of boredom, discovery, and creativity.
Teach kids to set short-term goals
Setting goals is an important way to empower your kids to pursue their biggest dreams. The next steps involve breaking them into short-term goals. This is a great way to gain momentum and become inspired.
Break the vision or dream into small steps which can be achieved over the next few weeks or months. As they make progress, it helps them stay focused, and manage difficult times and roadblocks in life. They will realize they have a bright future ahead where anything is truly possible.
Write down big dreams
An effective way to empower children to pursue big dreams is to encourage them to write them down. This increases their chances of achieving them and having future success.
It’s a fun activity that plays a vital role in keeping them motivated and focused on their goals even in tough times. They can use a journal or vision board for this. It’s a great way to always have that big picture in front of them too.
Guide your children toward their dreams
From an early age, our kids are naturally curious, like to explore, and have a positive attitude. It’s important not to force them into what we want them to do or limit their imagination.
As a parent, you’re a guide towards your child’s dreams. You don’t control them or manipulate them into sticking to a particular path because of your own experiences or interests. They can resent you when they’re older and this will strain your relationship.
The goal for us as parents is to raise self-assured individuals, who are full of joy and have chosen their own path and journey in life.
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.”
Dr. Seuss, children’s author and illustrator
Be Willing to Work on Yourself
Parents are constantly being watched by their children. If parents aren’t willing to work on themselves and have their own interests, they can’t expect their children to do so.
We need to model the behavior we want to see in our children. I read, run, and am productive throughout the day, which demonstrates the value of continuous self-improvement to my children.
Set big goals and smaller goals and allow your kids to see you achieve both. Even if you don’t have your dream career yet, engage in the habits of successful people and have a growth mindset.
Listen to audiobooks, read, get up early, take care of your health, be productive, and get better at what you do. It’s a journey to grow and achieve that future goal.
Bring Children Along on Your Dreams
As a parent, you empower children to pursue big dreams by sharing your own passions and dreams with them and also actively involving them in the pursuit of those dreams.
One of the ways we’ve done this is by creating a family dream board or vision board and individual dream boards. This can help children visualize their aspirations and understand the steps involved in achieving them.
Bringing them along on the journey even as you take smaller steps toward it, is a powerful way of teaching kids practical knowledge about goal setting and perseverance. It inspires them to do the hard work necessary to run the race of life and win.
Teach them to reframe failures
Almost all parents want to create a pain-free life for their kids. But that doesn’t exist in the real world. Even the most thought-out plans can face disruptions, setbacks, and tough times.
Some of these we can control and some are outside our control. Teach your children that their big dreams can come true. They just need to be flexible at times.
I want to instill a mental toughness into my kids, and I want them to know how to win. They might fail as they pursue their goals but what’s important is to embrace the lessons from the failure.
Failure can lead them to work harder, change their current path and face the right direction, change priorities, or come up with new dreams. There is always a light at the end of the tunnel.
Empower kids to pursue their big dreams by reading
The best way to ignite kids’ imagination is through reading. It helps them discover new things, events, and places, develop empathy, and improve their bond with you as you read together. They can find great ideas or a new way of doing something that helps them on the path to their goals.
Most children’s books have strong role models who show the importance of making a difference in their community or the world. They can teach your young dreamer to have confidence and overcome challenges to reach their full potential.
“I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.”
Roald Dahl (British novelist, short-story writer, poet, screenwriter, and wartime fighter pilot)
Be Their Best Example
Younger children particularly are more likely to emulate our actions than our words though. If not us then someone else will influence them like an athlete, a peer, an actor, or a social media influencer.
So we need to demonstrate a positive mindset, resilience, and a commitment to pursuing our own goals.
When children see their parents overcome obstacles, disruptions, and roadblocks and achieve their goals, it instills a belief that they too can do the same. Conversely, if parents give up easily or display negativity towards challenges, children may internalize these behaviors and develop a similar outlook.
They’ll watch what we do. They do what we do not what we say. Don’t give up on yourself because if you can quit, they can quit.
These are the Top 10 ways to empower kids to pursue big dreams. The first step is showing interest in your child. They need to try various things so they explore their creativity, read, set long-term and short-term goals, and write down their goals.
As a parent you’ll have, to guide them on their own path, be willing to work on your own dreams, bring them along on your dreams, teach them to reframe failure, and be their best example.
These are great practical steps a parent can take to instill huge dreams into their children. It’s all about how to empower them with the right tools to accomplish that dream!
As parents, we have important roles to play in our kids’ lives by, encouraging them to have a positive mindset, dream big, and persevere through challenges.
When we do, they’ll have future success and we will too.
And, remember, you are a winner. Just run YOUR race!
Goals Workshop (free resource)
Are you tired of quitting on yourself and your goals? Are you sick of the hustle culture and want a different strategy? My simple Red Hot Goals Formula will help you create a personalized game plan that works for your capacity in different seasons. You CAN work your goals into your lifestyle without sacrificing everything to achieve them.
In this free workshop, you’ll learn:
- The clarity you need to make your dream real to you without worrying about how it will all come together
- How to craft a simplified game plan that gets results in the season of life you’re in
- The secret sauce to taking action that works, even if you have limited time to make things happen
- PLUS: The #1 mistake people make when goal setting that causes them to quit too soon
If you are MORE than ready to finally take that desire inside your heart from conception to the finish line, this is for you!
