Raising Confident Kids
Tips to Building Confidence, Resiliency,
and Independence in Children
As parents, we all share the desire for our children to blossom into happy, healthy, confident, and resilient adults. A strong sense of self-worth, confidence, and curiosity forms the bedrock for embracing opportunities, taking well-considered risks, and making wise decisions that will support our children as they grow into adults and throughout their lives.
Let's get started with some tools and tips to help promote the development of self-confidence.
Self-Awareness
This begins with looking at yourself and examining your behaviors, thought processes, strengths, and weaknesses.
Self-examination: Consider how confident you currently feel and identify areas for improvement.
Be mindful of your overall attitude towards life. Do you perceive the glass as half-empty or half-full?
Be aware that you are your child’s first role model. Take this time to demonstrate to your children that you can make mistakes and be flawed, but you can also bounce back. Demonstrate self-compassion.
Share and discuss your learning process with your children; talk about your challenges, struggles, and current goals.
Do not speak negatively about yourself.
Treat your children with respect.
Enjoy your role as a parent. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Relax, play with your kids, and take time for your hobbies and interests.
2. Provide your children and yourself with a balanced lifestyle that includes proper nutrition, sufficient sleep, adequate rest, and leisure activities.
Your body and brain need adequate rest, essential nutrients, and time for creativity and relaxation to function at their best.
You do not have to always do your best; sometimes it is good to make time for rest…
Treat your children with respect, value their opinions about how they would like to spend their time
Schedule “Free-time” if you must in order to ensure that children have time to pursue their own interests, express themselves creatively, etc.
3. Teach problem-solving skills
Don’t get upset about mistakes.
Allow children to “fail” or make mistakes without having an overly dramatic response.
Let them make decisions and speak up for themselves.
Teach them how to accept consequences.
Ask them for their help, and get them involved in age-appropriate problems. (For example, “What do you think we should try to do to keep the dog from chewing your shoes?”)
Problem-Solving Outline
-
You can not address or repair a problem or conflict without having it defined clearly and concisely.
-
Create a long list of optional solutions or interventions to the problem. Be creative, don't be afraid to add some unusual, fun or unique ideas
-
Pick only one or two agreed upon interventions and implement them.
-
Did the intervention work? was it partly successful, how could you change or modify it? Do not be discouraged by initial failure.
-
Repeat this process as many times as it tkes. each effort offers the opportunity to learn something.
4. Teach your children how to set goals
Help children set and establish small-term, long-term, easy-to-reach goals. However, include some “stretch” goals to work toward.
Acknowledge your child's efforts to work toward the goals.
Encourage them to stay focused on their tasks, reminding them that some goals may be achieved easily, while others require more effort and work.
5. Praise
Teach them the importance of being honest.
Do not give false praise.
Brag on them in front of others, but not to excess and not to the point of embarrassment.
Remember to praise character traits such as patience, curiosity, gratitude, honesty, kindness, and compassion.
Praise perseverance and the ability to delay gratification.
6. Healthy Messages
As parents, teachers, mentors, or leaders of children, we must pay close attention to how we speak to children. We should notice our tone of voice, how loud we are talking, and pick appropriate times and settings for difficult conversations.
Avoid name-calling, using any derogatory terms or nicknames.
Begin Introducing affirmations to your children at a young age.
Examples of Healthy Messages
Your self-worth does not depend on beauty, productivity, or materialistic belongings.
You deserve to be treated well.
Your feelings are valid, valuable, and important.
It is good to ask for help.
You can use your strengths to meet challenges and not necessarily have to win them each time.
There is value in losing, failing, and making mistakes
7. Listening Skills
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of listening to children, allowing them to have a voice, and acknowledging that you have heard them and are trying to see their point of view.
Seek additional resources to learn how to communicate well. (I will address this in a future blog post)
8. Show your love
Let them know that they are accepted and loved. Perhaps if they know they are loved at home, they may not seek dysfunctional love, respect, and a sense of belonging from outside sources.
Show an interest or get involved with their school or extracurricular activities.
Help them identify their unique strengths and skills.
Express your love verbally and non-verbally.
Forgive mistakes.
Accept them for who they are, and reframe from trying to create mini-versions of yourself.
9. Teach basic social skills
Teach children basic manners, how to make eye contact, and how to introduce themselves to other children and adults in a safe manner.
Be aware of your bias, prejudice, and judgments of other people, places, and things.
Acknowledge and celebrate differences. Help children to understand that it is okay to have differing opinions, that you can “agree to disagree,” and that sometimes there is no clear right or wrong answer or opinion.
Teach them not to take things personally. Help them learn that all people carry their burdens and that sometimes these are misplaced on others.
Encourage social involvement with other children their age and with their interests.
Encourage group or team activities. This may include sports, academic interests, clubs, getting a job, or volunteering.
Begin teaching conflict and anger management at a young age. (I will address these in a future blog post)
Model and teach them how to make an apology.
Quick Outline for an Apology
-
You cannot apologize if you don't fully understand the nature of the harm done.
-
This includes personal assessment of what your part of the injury or damage is.
-
State the specific item(s) you are sorry for. Ensure that you have identified the mistake correctly.
-
Listen to what they say, empathize and ensure that they know yu have understood their thoughts and feeling entirely.
-
For example, "next time, I will call as soon as I can when I know that I am going to be late" or "I will work harder at not interrupting you when you speak."
-
You may have to revisit this step if you need more time to process or understans the nature of the pain, damge or mistake that yu have made.
10. Teach children how to set boundaries
Boundaries are important because;
they teach children to identify and communicate their needs while understanding and honoring others' boundaries.
they help establish some basic rules for physical and emotional safety
Acknowledge the importance of boundaries
Begin by role-modeling your healthy boundaries. Set basic boundaries for yourself and your children. Be comfortable saying “no.”
Communicate clearly about boundaries; don’t make this complicated, but answer questions when they are challenged. Explain the “why.”
Be consistent, but adjust boundaries as your children grow and mature.
Let them practice setting boundaries with you. (for example, knocking on their bedroom door before entering)
11. Encourage them to try new things, especially music, the arts, and games that require creativity.
Encourage curiosity and discovery. Let them ask questions about anything and everything.
Expose your children to various activities, including museums, parks, sporting events, plays, etc.
Show them a genuine level of interest in the activities they choose.
Let your child be the expert on their interests. Ask them to teach you about their interests, hobbies, and activities.
12. Lastly, here are Some of my favorite quotes, affirmations, and thoughts.
There are no dumb questions.
Teach children to appreciate the small and simple things.
Learn from the past, keep an eye on the future, but focus on the present.
Avoid making assumptions and taking things personally.
“A diamond doesn't start out polished and shining. It once was nothing special, but with enough pressure and time, it became spectacular.”―Solange Nicole
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I hope this has been helpful. If you believe it will benefit someone else, please share it. Also, check out some of my other entries and return for more topics.
Please feel free to email me if you have a topic you want me to address. The address is located on my website.
Resources
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7055680/
https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/practical-ways-to-raise-confident-kids
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7037269/
https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2018/07/positive-parenting