How to Build Self Confidence?


Don't do it for them!


Step back and allow your children the opportunities to get the experience for themselves.

How to Build Self Confidence:
Don't Solve Your Children's Problems For Them

Don't solve your children's problems for them!

Instead, see the problem as an opportunity for learning and growth and set them up with the chance to overcome the problem themselves within reason.

Many parents allow their children to avoid reasonably challenging situations so they won't be inconvenienced themselves.

Your children know when you will bail them out, and when you aren't being totally honest, and they will muster their skills to have you rescue them.

Try to separate out from feeling sorry for your children when you see them placed in awkward situations.

For instance, uneasy relationships between children often develop on the school playground.

These are tremendous learning opportunities - discuss them - talk out the problem - but don't rush in to fix it!

Often many of your buttons are pushed in these situations. However, if you aren't careful, you can 'repair' something that isn't actually the problem. It just feels like it because it often feels similar to your own childhood experience.

Let your child do the fixing and call yourself out when you know you are interfering.

Interfering is a difficult word to use when describing care of children. However if you are honest with yourself, interfering with your children's decision making abilities is the right name for your attempts to monitor and control them.

Do take the time to look at this concept in terms of your parenting style. Understanding the difference between interfering with and enabling your children, provides for very powerful parenting.

Interfering is not enabling behaviour, but produces fearful, timid children who lack confidence and decision making skills.

It's hard to think of loving parenting as over-parenting or over protective parenting, but the line is crossed so easily and is often hard to go back on.

How to Build Self Confidence?
Encourage Risk Taking in Your Children

Have lots of open-ended conversations with your children to help them question how they would cope with different situations.

Sprinkle you speech with open ended questions - use the six starting words.

Engage in conversations that begin with -

What do you think will happen if you do that, or don't do that?

How would you handle it?

Where would you go?

Why would you suggest that?

When do you think that's appropriate?

Who would you ask?

This encourages your children to think for themselves.

Listen to how you speak to your kids

Do you tell, or do you suggest?

Do you talk or do you listen?

Building self confidence is about building self esteem. Self esteem tools come through communication.

Raising Confident Children:
Commend Them

Let Them Know - Commend Them

If you set up situations for your children to practice their confidence with, you are also giving yourself opportunities to commend them for their thinking, their actions and their attempts.

Make the most of these.

Get into the habit of telling them:

I noticed today that you were easily on time.

I noticed how thoughtful you were.

I saw you really thinking carefully.

Reinforce their confidence by noticing, by consideration, and by listening.

Bedtime is a wonderful opportunity to reinforce all their goodness.Before your children go off to sleep thank them for their input into your family life.

Let them know that you observe, respect and consider them.

Help them to reach upwards towards their best potential by giving them opportunities for practice.

Don't Do it For Them!

Read about Raising Confident Children