Students who learn to think deeply about their own actions, emotions and abilities are much more likely to succeed both in school and life.

One of the executive functioning skills I mentioned in an earlier blog post is metacognition.

What is Metacognition?

Many big words are used in educational circles that leave the average parent confused and ignorant about details of their children’s learning progress or lack thereof.

Simply put, metacognition is self-awareness…it involves self-monitoring and self-evaluative skills. This skill is an important – not just for children, but also for adults.

Self-awareness skills are key to helping students understand their place in the world. It is the ability to tune in to your own feelings, thoughts, and actions. It’s also about recognizing the fact that how you act affects yourself and others.

You probably know adults who don’t have a strong sense of self-awareness and as you think about them, you may be wondering why we expect children to have self-awareness.

The simple answer is that self-awareness is important for people of all ages. It helps us thrive at home, at school, in the workplace, and in our relationships with other people.

How does self-awareness develop?

It happens over time. The process begins when children start being able to recognize and name their emotions, strengths and challenges, in addition to likes and dislikes.

There are two kinds of self-awareness.

1. Private self-awareness is when children are aware of something about themselves that other people might not be. For example, some children get butterflies in their stomach when called on to read in front of the class. Their knowing that they’re nervous is private self-awareness. It’s not something other people notice or know about them.

• Public self-awareness is when children are aware of how other people see them. This type of self-awareness develops later. That’s because children need to understand that other people have thoughts, feelings, and perspectives different from theirs. And until about age 5, most children don’t realize that other people aren’t always thinking and feeling the same way as them. (When I test children and show them a picture, telling them to tell me something about the picture, they usually put themselves in their answer. For example, I am walking to school with my backpack.)

Some children have a harder time learning this, especially those who have trouble reading social cues. It’s not that they don’t care about other people’s feelings. Instead, they may not notice or understand other people’s feelings.

Private and public self-awareness work together. They help children understand that what they are thinking and feeling — how they’re “seeing” themselves — might not always be the way other people see them.

Why is self-awareness important?

When children understand themselves better, it’s easier for them to build positive self-esteem. That’s important for kids who struggle in school or with friendships. It gives them a way to look not just at their challenges, but also to see what they’re good at. Knowing more about how they think and how they come across gives children a better sense of when to speak up for what they need. They learn how to advocate for themselves.

Children who are self-aware do a better job at self-monitoring, too. That means they’re able to keep track of what they’re doing (with schoolwork or socially) and figure out what’s working and what’s not working. Self-awareness also leads to self-reflection — thinking over things that happened to find ways to make things work better next time.

When children have strong self-awareness skills, they:

• Recognize their strengths and challenges
• Can figure out what they need to do to complete a task
• Notice mistakes in schoolwork and make edits or changes
• Can understand and talk about feelings
• Recognize other people’s needs and feelings
• See how their behavior affects others
• Have a growth mindset
• Are resilient and willing to learn from their mistakes

When you fully contemplate the meaning and significance of metacognition you will realize that it pertains to the knowledge and skills for organizing, guiding, and controlling one’s own thinking, actions, and learning processes.

It concerns the skills for:

• Task orientation (what am I to do?),
• Goal setting (what am I to achieve?),
• Planning (how do I reach that goal?),
• A systematical approach (step-by-step),
• Monitoring oneself during task execution (am I not making mistakes, do I understand all of it?),
• Evaluating the outcome (is the answer correct?), and  
• Reflection (what can I learn from this episode?).

Students with good metacognitive skills are at the helm of their own learning process, through which they can execute a learning task more effectively.

How can you help your child develop self-awareness?

Helping your child build self-awareness can start in small ways, like having open conversations about school and talking about their strengths and challenges.

Example:

• Ask open-ended questions about school, “What class did you do best in today?” or “Who are the children you talk to the most in your class?
• Share something about yourself, then ask a question. “When I was your age, my friends and I liked to play catch at recess. What do you and your friends do?”
• Help your children set a goal, create steps to meet the goal, and monitor their progress, all the while talking about their thoughts, feelings and actions.
• If your child struggles to understand other people’s feelings and social cues, read stories that teach empathy and discuss them.

Metacognition determines learning performances to a large extent (up to 40%). It is more important to the learning process than intelligence, social-economical background, and motivation.

So, it is important that you help your child develop self-awareness. However, keep in mind that as with any skill, teaching self-awareness requires time, patience and practice.

When was the last time you thought about your thoughts, or your children’s ability to think about their thoughts?