The strong-willed qualities of a person are not given to a person from birth, they appear under the influence of the educational process. The baby performs the first volitional action during birth, which triggers the volitional mechanism, the desire for life, to overcome difficulties.
The dynamics of the development of will
1) By the second month of life, the newborn begins to master his chaotic movements, purposefully capturing the object that attracted his attention. Gradually, in the first year of life, the baby takes possession of his body, voice apparatus, copies adults. Parents create conditions that help both train willpower and develop it: a bright toy is placed in the child’s access area, but in order to get it, the baby must roll over or crawl to it.
2) When the child turns one year old, he begins to walk. Having mastered the movements, the baby is trying to complicate his actions: steps over pits, runs uphill, closes his eyes while walking. All interfering objects should not be removed from his path: for him it is a training of willpower, improvement of a skill.
3) In the period of preschool childhood, the development of willpower occurs in the game, in acts of drawing, completing tasks at the request of an adult. Psychologists have found that volitional manifestations in character are stimulated by game images. The usual long jump and the jump in the image of an Olympic athlete are significantly different in their performance.
4) In the process of preparing the child for school, parents think about how to train the willpower of the future student, because he will need a lot of mental strength to complete the tasks of the teacher, to achieve the correct spelling of letters, to keep attention throughout the lesson. To do this, it is recommended throughout all previous periods to teach the baby to finish the work he has begun, to give to solve puzzles and puzzles complex, but also feasible for the child. In case of refusal of activity, provide timely assistance, create success situations, rejoice at the results obtained together.
How to train willpower with fairy tales
The technology can be used both at home and in kindergarten.
1) A selection is made of such fairy tales, where the character performed a volitional action and as a result received the desired or unexpected reward. For example, this is the tale “Sivka-burka”, in which the father asks his three sons to guard the field, to catch the thief who tramples wheat at night. The older and middle brother could not cope with the father’s order, and the younger Ivan somehow managed to catch the thief.
2) A fragment of a fairy tale is selected that helps to understand what the hero of the story specifically did in order to show willpower. The content is recounted, which describes that Ivan did not fall asleep at night, because he did not lie, but sat on a pebble, not allowing himself to fall asleep. It was uncomfortable to sit, but he fulfilled his father's order.
3) The adult draws the attention of the child to the fact that the reward for Ivan was not only the gratitude of his father, but also a horse as a gift, and a beautiful bride.
4) Next, the technique of transferring from a fairy tale to reality is used. It is proposed to recall whether the child or his friends had to be in a situation when he did not want to do something very much on behalf of the adult, but he suffered and completed the task. Together, we can recall several fragments from the child's life experience in order to consolidate the positive effect of involvement with the hero of the fairy tale.
In older preschool children love fairy tales, where a lot depends on the character’s efforts to overcome difficulties, when you have to go to the distant kingdom, guess riddles, and be patient. In each fairy tale story, the heroes use different tricks that can tell the child how to train willpower. Adults only need to offer each month for reading during the day or at bedtime a new tale with a new plot and a way for the hero to achieve his goal.