Perseverance is the skill that helps children and teens work through challenges so they can meet their goals. In other words, perseverance is sticking with it! It is one of the most important social-emotional skills that all learners need for success; that’s because we all encounter challenges big and small in our everyday lives.
Some learners walk into the classroom with stronger skills for perseverance. These are the kids who will strategize and work through a problem, use flexible thinking to come up with creative solutions, and ultimately solve the difficulty on their own.
With that said, perseverance is a skill that can absolutely be taught, practiced, and strengthened over time. Kids and teens can learn strategies to help them persevere through their biggest challenges. We all can build upon these strategies, and they’re worth the time and effort to learn.
Use these strategies and techniques to help kids and teens build skills for perseverance:
1. Use calming strategies
When we become frustrated, overwhelmed, or upset, it’s important to put the brakes on. Calming strategies (or coping strategies) are actionable techniques to calm our body and mind in tough moments. These are an essential component to building perseverance skills, because we can’t problem-solve at our best until we’re more calm and focused.
Strategies to practice:
- Mindful Breathing: Use the power of mindful breathing to calm your body and mind. Sit comfortably in your seat. Put your hand over your belly as you breathe in and out slowly.
- Coloring: Gather coloring pages and drawing utensils. Play calming music while you color.
- Exercise: Stand up and move your body! Have someone lead stretches or watch an exercise video to follow together.
2. Check in with yourself
When you want to give up on something, pause and use the power of self-awareness to pause and check in with yourself. This can help you understand what you’re struggling with and what you need to move forward.
Strategies to practice:
- Use a Daily Check-In: Practice checking in with yourself on a regular basis using a daily emotions check in. Note: While there are many different check-in activities you can try, this executive functioning check-in journal teaches about flexibility and perseverance at the very same time!
- Keep a Questions List: Create a list of questions to ask yourself when you feel like giving up. Questions might include: How am I feeling? What am I struggling with? What challenges are in my way? What strategies can I try?
- Write in a Journal: Take a few moments to share how you’re feeling in a journal.
3. Picture the goal
Picturing the goal means thinking about what you want the end outcome to be. In order to design a solid plan in persevering through a challenge, you need to first identify where you want to go.
Strategies to practice:
- State the Goal: In writing or out loud, explicitly state what you want to accomplish. Writing the goal down can also serve as a reminder as you keep working through the task.
- Draw the End Result: Before starting a task or activity, sketch out a picture of what you want your finished product to look like. For example, you might draw a picture of what your neatly cleaned room would look like.
4. Make a plan
Making a plan involves having a clear understanding of the goal you want to accomplish and listing out the individual steps to get there. Besides being a support for perseverance, making a plan is an excellent strategy to help you stay focused when your attention starts to drift.
Strategies to practice:
- Write Step-by-Step Lists: When you have a job to do, list out your goal and come up with steps to get there. For example, if your goal is to write a book report, your steps might include typing your first draft, editing, writing a final draft, and drawing a picture.
- Share Your Plan: Before getting started on a job, tell someone else your plan. This not only reminds you what you need to do, but it helps hold you accountable.
5. Use positive self-talk
Positive self-talk can help calm frustrations and drive motivation. Encouraging words and phrases can help you to stay positive, even when you are confronted with challenges along the way. A couple examples for perseverance might be “I can do it,” and “This is going to help me build my skills.” Keep in mind that different self-talk phrases are going to work for different people.
Strategies to practice:
- Read Affirmations: Recite positive affirmations from a list.
- Discuss Positive Self-Talk Phrases: Read and discuss a positive affirmation of the day.
- Act Out Self-Talk Phrases: Stand in a circle and act out positive affirmation phrases. For example, say, “I am confident” with hands on your hips.
6. Talk it out
Sometimes just talking about our challenges can help problem-solve, plan, and persevere. By putting our problems into words, this can often help us make sense of what we’re struggling with and think of our own solutions.
Strategies to practice:
- Problem-Solving Scenarios: Read problem-solving scenarios and talk out solutions together. Use these free problem-solving scenarios to give it a try!
- Turn and Talk: When you encounter a roadblock, turn to someone next to you to share. Explain the problem you’re working on and what solutions you might use.
7. Try another way
Sometimes when working through a problem, we can get “stuck” on our own way of thinking. Part of building perseverance skills is learning to be flexible and trying different strategies.
Strategies to practice:
- Problem-Solving Scenarios: Read and discuss some problem-solving scenarios. Try to come up with at least two different ways to solve the problem.
- Use Strategy Shares: After solving a problem or completing an activity, give time to talk about how you each solved the challenge. Discuss: How did you solve the problem? What strategies did you use?
8. Take wait time
We all get the urge to want to give up on a task sometimes. Instead of giving in to this feeling, practice wait time. This means giving yourself a short period of time just to pause and do nothing. Sometimes, this short pause actually gives you the quick break you need to think of new ideas and get back on track.
Strategies to practice:
- Use a Timer: Before giving up on a problem or task, set the timer for 3 minutes. During this time, do nothing! Sit, breathe, and be. If you’re still stuck after this wait time, you can consider other strategies like taking a break or asking for help.
9. Take a break (and come back)
When faced with a problem or challenge, breaks serve as an important strategy to help your brain recharge. The most important part is to choose brain-boosting breaks that provide your mind a chance to rest and relax before heading back to the task at hand.
Strategies to practice:
- Skip and Return Later: When stuck on an individual problem, such as a math question on a worksheet, skip it and keep going onto other problems or sections. By the time you return back to the problem, your brain may have had enough of a break to think of it differently.
- Take a Quiet Mindful Walk: Spend time taking a walk (outdoors if you can). Notice what you can see, hear, feel, and smell around you.
- Exercise: Get your body moving! Take a brisk walk, jog, or do some jumping jacks.
- Write in a Journal: Spend 10 minutes free writing in a journal or notebook. Note that you don’t need to actually write about the problem you’re working on. Just the practice of free-writing can help clear your mind.
- Do Nothing: Spend 3-5 minutes doing nothing! This might feel uncomfortable at first, but it’s an important strategy to let your mind rest. While you are doing nothing, your brain is actually replenishing critical self-regulation abilities that are necessary to solve problems.
10. Ask for help
Asking for help is the final strategy I’m listing because ultimately we want our learners to problem-solve and persevere independently. With that said, it’s important to know when and how to ask for help too.
Strategies to practice:
- Learn about Self-Advocacy: Self-advocacy involves understanding what you need and using your voice to speak up for yourself. Learn more about self-advocacy strategies for kids and teens.
- Turn and Talk: Practice turning to the person next to you and asking for help.
- Support Slip: On a piece of paper, specifically write out what you need help with. This can give you a more clear understanding of exactly what you are struggling with.
Teaching Executive Functioning Skills
Ready for more? Use these executive functioning mini-lessons to teach skills from planning to perseverance!
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