Empowerment… what does it mean? This is an important question and often one that doesn’t even feature on the radar of practitioners or parents. But it is key to children’s development, happiness, and learning. Being empowered means you have a confidence that things are possible, achievable, do-able. It’s looking at a problem and thinking about solutions, breaking that problem down into stages and working through each step.
It’s having the ability to be emotionally aware of others around you, thinking how you can support them and knowing that you can make a difference. It’s having an opinion about something and being confident enough to say what you think, even if others don’t agree. Empowerment is being able to accept a push back but not be put off offering a different opinion.
In our society we worry what people think about us. We might adjust our behaviour to fit in or not say something because we don’t want to create an uncomfortable situation. What if we were more confident? More willing to participate and put ourselves forward? More aware of our environment and how we impact others around us? Just think how we might behave differently and engage with others in a more proactive and positive way.
These are skills children can learn and harness through focusing upon a process of empowerment. The best way they can do this is through activities that they are already comfortable in – namely play. When children are involved in social play with their friends, they have choice and freedom to join in, offer suggestions, take charge, or play alongside.
It is a great way for you to observe what children are comfortable in doing, what they find hard to navigate and who they naturally gravitate towards when they are not under any pressure. Once you have this knowledge you can start to think of other opportunities that could build on their interests which include developing skills for them to participate in different ways, offer their opinion more or take more of an active role.
This is where the Empowerment Framework can help.
It makes it easy for you to identify areas where children are already empowered and where they might need some guidance. Prompt questions help you to see what empowerment is in different situations and can help you plan for activities based on what you know about the child. Building a full picture about not only what children can do, but how they tackle different situations helps you to understand how they are empowered and what you might be able to do through different activities to develop new skills.
Young children can naturally have the skills to be empowered. What if we could harness that? Nurture it, grow it and celebrate it? We would have children much better prepared for growing up in a challenging world where it is easy to believe you are not good enough. Building empowerment from a young age would enable children to think anything is possible and who wouldn’t want that? That’s why empowerment matters.
Dr. Natalie Canning