multi-ethnic family
Children,  Mental Health,  Parenting

Teaching Confidence To Your Children Is Crucial

Teaching confidence in your children is crucial. It’s an essential trait that will make them happy adults and resilient to challenges.

Children learn many things as they grow. We need to give them space to do that because it’s hard being a brand new person and having to learn everything from scratch. That might sound like an overdramatization of matters, but that’s seriously, realistically, what they’re doing.

However, while they need to be taught to share, to play nice, to respect boundaries, to communicate well, and all of the fundamental academic principles that will help them get through school, they also need to learn how to grow their self-worth. Curiously, this kind of talk is rarely spoken of in schools, because self-confidence can often seem like arrogance, which many parents aren’t all-too-fond of seeing their child fall into.

But confidence isn’t loud. It isn’t overbearing, not forceful. It’s simply having self-worth. This can be the difference between telling a teacher if someone is picking on them, and choosing not to do that. Even people in their adulthood can often find themselves struggling with that, and extra efforts or a DTSS review might be there to guide them later in life.

Teaching confidence to your child is crucial. Let’s consider how that can be done:

Help Them Learn Self-Defense Tactics

Self-defense is often thought of in terms of physical defense. While paying for your child to attend martial arts classes can actually be thoroughly rewarding for them, self-defense can also come from other means. The ‘sticks and stones’ saying is as relevant today as it’s ever been, and teaching them to speak to an adult if threatened is also important. Furthermore, teach them that they don’t have to listen to being denigrated and that you are always there to listen to their troubles. This helps kids feel resilient, yet open and communicative. It’s a great place to start because unfortunately, some children never learn those lessons.

Give Them Appropriate, Earned Praise

False praise runs hollow. Children learn not to respect it. Well-aimed praise? Well, this can help a child truly feel good about themselves. Did they make an extra effort with their homework? Are they telling a teacher after being pushed? Did they defend their little sister at school? Were they honest with you, even if they knew that meant getting in trouble? Reinforce the behavior you wish to see in them. They will repeat it, provided they can trust your words.

Convince Them To Get Out Of Their Comfort Zone

A child going out of their comfort zone is a good thing. For instance, purchasing them a bicycle they can ride around their local area instead of playing Fornite all day can help them explore, and feel more connected to the world. It might be that you enroll them in a sport or a crafts class. All of this can help your child grow in confidence and become less fearful in new situations.

teaching confidence pin

With this advice, we hope you can more easily teach confidence to your children. We’re sure you’re already doing a brilliant job. Best of luck.

Until next time…

Thanks for reading! -Kirsta

Hi! I am a wife, mommy of 2 girls, a blogger, and a nurse. My daughter has special needs and I have a passion for mental health. So, the drama is a daily occurrence for this mama. Come along for the ride!