In the past 10 years, growth of STEM related jobs has increased by 3 times and over 70% of jobs in the near future will require mastery of scientific skills and mathematical knowledge. Getting your child involved in STEM activities should no longer be a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’ based on these statistics.
Ownership
Nothing does more for your self esteem than having ownership of something, especially when this something grows and changes because you want it to. Developing ideas in robotics for example can start from knowing how to code it, to then coding it for a specific purpose or action.
I did it!
That feeling of success can come in small but incredibly powerful doses. When involved in robotic projects this is clear as the success is so visual and immediate. The fact that you are working on design thinking and innovation that is important to you is vastly important for building self-confidence. At the end of a lot of trial and error is that crucial a-ha moment!
Growth Mindset
Growth mindset is paramount for self confidence and it actually develops fantastic learning habits that will stay with your child for life and across disciplines. Growth mindset specifically talks about how people deal with failure and setbacks, seeing them not as obstacles but as opportunities for learning. That positive self talk is fundamental in all areas of school and life and comes so easily through STEM as there is naturally so much debugging, and trial and error.
Through STEM classes, children can, not only develop their self-confidence, but also become confident in problem solving, negotiating, math, science, innovation and even in their own creativity.