One of the essential qualities every parent should try to develop in his/her child is confidence. Every other quality can be developed later on in life, but confidence is one such quality that is needed since the growing up years of a child.
This is because confident children believe in themselves and as they grow from baby, to child to teen confidence grows with them in stages. They know how to put forward their point of view confidently. They are ready to face different situations in life. They know how to set goals and how to achieve them.
Here are five ways to build confidence in your child;
1. Allow Your Children To Make Some Decisions On Their Own
In simple life situations, allow your children or ask your children to take decisions for themselves. Childcare settings like Toddle encourage confidence from a young age.
When children take decisions for themselves, they gain confidence. They learn to become independent from a young age.
Giving children their own ‘age appropriate’ tasks to help you out or to help someone else like a grandparents, sibling or neighbour. This will encourage them to be confident, know they are important and helpful.
2. Support Their Decisions
This point is related to the first point. Allow your child to take his/her own decisions. And then support his/her decision.
Of course, in serious life situations, you can’t let your child (especially when he is quite young) act arbitrarily. But in simple cases where you know your child won’t be hurt or he/she won’t regret taking a wrong decision, support the decision.
If you would immediately tell them that their decision is wrong (and if this happens again and again), it can lessen their confidence. Therefore, if possible, support your children’s decision and let them continue with it.
3. Ask Their Opinion
Again, a very important activity for building your child’s confidence. Make it a habit of asking your child for his/her opinion in matters where possible.
Children love to have an input on pretty much most things, give them the chance to have a say in something as simple as what they wear, what they eat or what they want to do.
You could even ask them things like what toppings they want on their pizza, if you look nice in your dress or if you like the new lamp for the living room. There are endless ways you can bring your child into having an opinion and having the confidence to have an opinion and a voice.
The children would feel important. They would like the fact that their opinions matter to the rest of the family members. And this would lead to an increase in their confidence.
4. Allow Them To Pursue Their Hobbies & Passions
If your child is around 9-10 years of age, then you must have noticed by now what are his/her hobbies.
It’s essential that you allow them to pursue their hobbies. Do something that would increase their love for their hobbies. For example, if your child is good at sketching, enrol him or her into a sketching class.
Or show them some good YouTube sketching videos and ask him/her to try that sketching technique. You can even organise a small exhibition of his/her sketches in your home.
These small steps would have such a significant impact on your child’s confidence. This would boost his/her confidence, and you never know a simple childhood hobby can turn into a lifelong career.
5. Shower Them With Your Love
An obvious point. When children know that their family, their siblings or their grandparents love them to the moon, they feel confident. They feel empowered. They know that there are people whom they can look up to when needed.
And it’s not enough to keep this to yourself that you love your children. Show them that you love them. Occasionally tell him/her that you are a lovely child and we are lucky to have you. Small gestures like hugging them, show your children that they are important.
6. Show Your Own Confidence For Them To Look Up To
One thing as adults we really struggle with is to have confidence in ourselves and create a good example. No matter what our kids will see and pick up on the things we do, say and how we act.
Be that role model you want your child to see, boost your own confidence and try new things so they can see that it is something that is good and fun to do.
You don’t have to be perfect, acknowledge your mistakes and down falls but having the confidence to get back up and carry on is also a good thing to do.
7. Make Them Responsible For Their Own Purchases & Choices
Something that can really help with confidence is giving a gently push to interacting in new social situations. One of these can be asking for something of a stranger or paying for something themselves.
This is an especially great technique if they are wanting to spend their own pocket money, you can give them the freedom and so the confidence to make their own decisions and choices.
They might even need to ask for help from someone in the shop and so you can push them to do that also.
8. Embrace Failure & Getting Back On The Horse
One thing we know children can easily do is give up, allow them to have those moments of failure and upset but encourage them to continue or take what they have learnt and put it into something new.
Encourage them to work through what didn’t work and why and help them to try again or learn from that time. It is important to encourage children to try again as they could actually love the task they are trying to do but just not understanding how to move onto the next step.
Giving them the support and tools so they can apply the same concept into new failures and roadblocks will give them the confidence to move on and try again at other things in life.
9. Give Your Child Goals
Children (most children, not everyone is the same) work really well with something to aim for. In school it can be something as simple as a sticker on a behaviour chart, at home it can be a treat or toy.
Giving your children a goal to work towards, something they enjoy, like or want to make good decisions and to do something they can be proud of will encourage that same behavouir to repeat and them to have more confidence.
10. Give Them Room To Grow
As parents, we often work hard to make sure that our children are happy, have everything they could need and want and most of all make it so they don’t have to fail or be upset.
Well failure builds character and is a great confidence builder, as they will learn what caused the failure and will help them to know not to do it again and how to over come it.
Also giving your child room to grow, let them have more freedom and make good choices for themselves. Don’t do everything for them, if they want something done, teach them once and let them work it out from there. Give them the time to grow and work things out for themselves.
11. Play With Them And Follow Their Lead
Another great way to boost confidence in children, especially younger children is to get involved in their play. Some children which are more than happy to play on their own can often be more comfortable in their own company but can often lead to them lacking in confidence.
Get involved in yoru child’s play and let them lead, you are the guest in their imagination so you can follow their lead. This will help them with their social skills, communication and confidence to play with others.
This is increcibly important if you are sending your child to nursery or school, these small things you do at home can make their experience smoother and they will be able to play with more children and feel more confident in new spaces.
12. Let Them Hear You Praise Them To Other People
Nothing makes a child prouder of themselves than their parent singing their praises, especially to other people. Whether this is to another mum in the playground, grandparents or friends.
Let you child know when they have made you proud of them or done something great. Singing their praises is a great way of saying ‘good job’ but much better and with longer lasting effects.
This can even be hanging up their art work in the house, listening to them play their instrument or singing or even watching a performance. Children will get such a great feeling from hearing you talk about how good they are that it produces confidence and the reaction of wanting to recreate that feeling again.
All these points are simple ways in which you can build your child’s confidence. This will take time. Confidence can’t be built in a day or two. Therefore, it’s always good to start when they are young. As they will grow, you won’t even have to do any of these purposely. These would become a habit and a part of your personality!
