Start nurturing assertiveness in yourself and your kids today. Assertiveness is a communication skill. Like any other skill it gets better with practice. Generally it gets confused with aggressiveness, but it is different and useful, unlike aggressiveness. Every human at any stage of life needs assertiveness to lead a happy and fulfilling life. Be your child’s guide in this process of nurturance and growth. Hold their little hands and help them prosper.

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Nurture Assertiveness In Children – Prep Them
For A Better Future
Leave a Comment / Thoughts / By Pooja Subramanian
How do you nurture assertiveness in children? Firstly, let us understand assertiveness and its
significance.
Assertiveness is a communication skill. Like any other skill it gets better with practice. Generally it
gets confused with aggressiveness, but it is different and useful, unlike aggressiveness.
Speaking in this context, communication can be categorized as passive, assertive and aggressive.
There is a wide range of communication types between and amongst these major types.
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Communication styles, their characteristics and impact
As can be seen from the above image, assertive style is the most effective style of communication. As
depicted by the font color, size, content and images, assertiveness scores better always and leaves
the involved parties with a pleasant feeling.
Benefits of Assertiveness
Benefits of assertiveness are several. One of them is little or no social anxiety because you are self-
aware and expect positive responses. Another one is less chances of being depressed or stressed
because by being assertive our needs get fulfilled. This can lift our spirits.
Greater self-esteem is a benefit too – we validate our perspective by expressing them to others and
by honoring our own needs. This can make us feel good about ourselves. We can control our own
lives rather than let someone else control it, which would be the case if we are passive. Building and
maintaining relationships also becomes an easy task for assertive people because they tend to
respect each other. They openly express their needs and tend to be elaborate and empathetic.
Meanwhile passive people could get caught up in toxic relationships and get stuck in them due to
their submissive nature. They could face and also get impacted by bullying in school, family, 

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workplace, etc. On the other hand, aggressive persons can be really stressful to handle in any
relation, whether it be at home or at work.
While some kids are naturally assertive, some are more towards the passive (shy, timid, withdrawn),
or aggressive (competitive, coercive, resistant) spectrum. Assertive kids tend to be accommodative,
engaging, initiators, collaborative, industrious, integrative, cooperative, and compromising when
required. There is always a way to build these qualities in kids as they grow up.
Start nurturing assertiveness in yourself and your
kids today!
Sharing a few quick tips here so you can start working with your tiny tot right away.
Non-verbal traits
Eye Contact
Boundaries
Facial expression
Posture and Gestures
Vocal tone and quality
Listening Skills
Verbal Traits
“I” statement
Broken record technique
Fogging
Saying “no”
Few More Tricks
Qualities to Build
Build Self-Awareness
Decision Making
Social Interactions
Teach Relaxation Techniques
Practice Gratitude
Be a Good Role Model
Non-verbal traits
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Eye Contact
Have friendly eye contact with your kid whenever you speak. If they do not reciprocate, get them to
practice proper eye contact. Make sure that they do not avoid eye contact or stare down at people
while speaking.
Boundaries
Educate them about physical boundaries like personal space and body. Too close could indicate
aggressiveness and too far passivity. Help them identify and maintain the appropriate distance in
different kinds of situations. Help them get comfortable and connected with their own emotions so
they can understand their own emotional boundaries and that of others. Educate them about sexual
boundaries so they know what is and not acceptable. Intellectual boundaries are also equally
important – acknowledging and respecting your own and other’s opinions/ values/ beliefs.
Facial expression 

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Help them identify and express their feelings. This way they will know what facial
expression to keep when they feel a certain way and maintain consistency in
communication and expression. Get a copy of our book My Emotions to help your little
ones understand and identify their emotions.
Posture and Gestures
Teach them how to stand, sit, move confidently and with ease. Correct their posture when they are
slouching or not sitting/ standing straight. Introduce them to friendly gestures. Correct them if they
are pointing fingers or using similar rude gestures. Help them understand themselves, answer their
queries rationally, and help them express. Once they are self-aware they will learn how to be
confident too.
Vocal tone and quality
Talk to them in a clear and firm tone, rather than always be too loud or too quiet. They will soon start
following you.
Listening Skills
Listening to a counterpart will help them have more information before they can respond or
collaborate. This way they can make the right decisions. Also people have more liking for you when
you listen to them with respect. Let the other person feel heard. This can nurture empathy in our kids
and help them become effective communicators.
Verbal Traits
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“I” statement
Help kids use the “I” statement. When you feel a certain way due to some action of theirs, simply tell
them how you feel about what they did, and how they could have made you feel different. There is a
good chance that they will follow suit next time. If not, when you see them mishandling certain
situations, assess whether this strategy can be used and help them use it.
The benefit of this strategy is that you are not blaming or accusing anyone, you are only expressing
your own feelings and telling the other person how they could have helped better. For instance, if a
group of kids are not letting them join in to play, they could simply say, “I feel sad that I cannot play
with you all. It would be great if I could join in too.” There is a good chance that someone in the group
will budge.
Broken record technique
Teach them how repeating the same answer multiple times without any change in tone can help
sometimes. If they do not want to do something, but are being forced by someone, teach them how
they could use this technique. For instance they could use this technique to stop a bully who is
challenging them to do something that they do not want to do.
Fogging
This is when you acknowledge what someone else just said, but continue on to express your own
feelings or opinion about the situation at hand. For instance, “I understand that you find my drawing
childish, but if you teach me a few tips I can do better next time”. In case the child is not even keen
about drawing they could just say. ” I understand that you find my drawing childish, but this is not my
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area of interest and I am not actually good at it”. To tackle a bully who tells them that they are not
likeable, they could just say, “I understand that you do not like me, but I don’t really care”.
Saying “no”
Help your child understand boundaries. This will help them in a big way when it comes to
safeguarding their own physical, emotional, intellectual and sexual boundaries. Also help them say
“no” in a friendly manner when that is what is required. For instance, if a friend wants to play and they
are not interested they could say something like, “I really like this game, but right now my leg is
hurting a bit. I feel like taking a break and reading a book instead”.
Few More Tricks
If they are preparing for a presentation, seminar or some extra-curricular activity, help them be well
prepared and explain how preparation could help. You can give examples from your experience –
about how you goofed up your first presentation and then you started doing better once you were
more prepared.
Let them know that there is no need to apologize unless they make a mistake. It is ok to state your
own needs or speak up for others without feeling unapologetic.
Teach children how to remove themselves from hostile or aggressive environments. They could say
something like, “I can see that there is nothing more that I can do here, so let me move on to look into
something else”.
Qualities to Build
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Build Self-Awareness
Apart from the techniques mentioned above, you could help them understand themselves better –
this will help them understand their strengths, weaknesses and they can use this knowledge to carve
their path to success. Self-awareness will help them be confident and have better self-esteem and
self-respect.
Decision Making
Let them take initiative and make their own decisions. This could start as soon as they start to play
and pick things on their own. On a daily basis let them choose what they want to wear. If they are
being too unreasonable, explain why there is a problem. Maybe the weather is too cold and they
chose to wear thin clothes. Tell them that they might catch a cold and it would be better to wear
thicker clothes.
Social Interactions
Help kids interact with groups of kids or elders. If you are taking them to a new place or to meet with
a new group of kids or people, tell them beforehand, so they can be prepared. Depending on how
they interact with the group, help them if and when necessary. Make sure that the child is
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comfortable and not feeling intimidated by you or anyone else. Help your child handle such situations
with confidence and ease.
Teach Relaxation Techniques
Help your child relax and calm. Teach them breathing techniques to calm down – breathe in through
the nose up to a count of 5, hold for 5 counts and breathe out through slightly open lips up to a count
of 5. They could do this several times until they start feeling better. More oxygen in the system will
help fix the heart beat rate and also early anxiety.
They could also be taught positive self talk. If they are feeling nervous before a dance performance
they could tell themselves, “You are a good dancer and you are going to thoroughly enjoy performing
today”. Creating a list of affirmations and saying it to themselves is something else they could do with
you. The list could have affirmations like, “I am confident. I am strong and bold. I love myself just the
way I am”.
Practice Gratitude
Teach kids the importance of respect and gratitude towards others. This will help them be
grateful for what they have, and also like and accept themselves and others just the way
they are. They will able to accept new opinions and beliefs with respect. Get our Thank
you book for your little one today and nurture the quality of gratitude in them.
Be a Good Role Model
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Most importantly, be their role model. Most of the times, you already are. Children tend to learn most
from their parents, teachers and caretakers. They consider them their best role models, even though
you might be unaware. So get yourself on the train to appropriate assertiveness levels. Your kids will
definitely follow suit. If not, help them. Every human at any stage of life needs assertiveness to lead a
happy and fulfilling life. Be your child’s guide in this process of nurturance and growth. Hold their
little hands and help them prosper. Maybe our parents never did this for us due to lack of awareness
back then. This is your chance to make up for it now!
Have a look at our books for children here.
Our books are also available on amazon.
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