Confident Children

Be careful to listen to your child and pay attention to what they are telling you not what you think you hear.  If a child comes home from school telling you that everyone else in the class is much better/smarter than them, the worst thing you can do is pat them on the head and tell them they are being silly. 

You have just undermined their confidence and belief in themselves – they trusted you with their feelings and you have dismissed them.  Instead, try and sit down with your child and ask them why they think that way.  In language which they will understand but not find patronising, try and explain that some people are better than others in certain fields but they are not as good as your child in xxx.  X being whatever it is your child excels in and we all excel in something – you just have to find it.

Never tell your child to grow up or stop behaving like a baby.  Children sometimes struggle with their emotions just like adults do.  They can feel overwhelmed by life and this can be illustrated by a “babyish” reaction.  Again try talking to them and finding out what is making them feel that way.  It is only by talking and listening to your child, that you can help them.  They will trust you and become more confident in their own abilities to solve their own problems or issues. 

If they are behaving like a baby (and are not still in nappies) then find out why.  They may be tired or just having a bad day.  Try and distract them but do not focus on the “babyish” behaviour.  We all have days that you would prefer to spend in bed with the duvet over your head and as the day goes by you wish you had– kids are no different.

Find reasons to praise your child but keep it in perspective.  If you praise everything your child does, they will learn that the praise is not worth having or else they may think that they need somebody else’s approval for every action they take.  If your child has done something amazing – then by all means praise them.  But telling them they are the next Michelangelo when they build a clay model is pushing it.  Unless of course it is amazing and he is a junior expert in sculpting.

Sometimes parents take this advice and start praising their child for being good or getting good grades in school.     But you can inadvertently teach a child that in order to get your approval they must be the best behaved or get the highest marks all the time.  Instead, why not comment on your child’s laugh or running abilities or smile.   

Think about how much attention you give your child and whether it is positive or negative.  If you have two children in the one room and one is playing nicely by himself whilst the other is climbing on the sofa.  Who gets your attention?  Usually the one playing on the sofa as he gets told off.  The other child gets ignored so both children learn that negative behaviour will get mum or dads attention.

A different tactic would be to praise the child playing nicely and ignore the one climbing on the furniture.  Now the message that is coming across is that positive behaviour gets attention and one thing all kids the world over have in common is that they like attention.

Also show your kids some appreciation.  Say thank you to them if they help with the dishes or tidy up their toys.  Catch them being good and you may just find that they are good more often!

A lot of our parenting is done on autopilot and is based on what we learnt from our parents even if we don’t agree with it now we are adults.  For example, being the eldest I was constantly told (or at least it felt like constantly!) that I had to take care of the younger ones or that I should know better.  I swore I would never use this expression with my kids.  Yet the other day I told my five year old that he should know better than his cousin when they were both being naughty.   My son asked but why?  And my answer – “because you are older!” .  I nearly died – he is only a couple of months older and here was me sounding exactly like my own mum.

Don’t misunderstand me – I had fantastic parents but like most parents they occasionally got it wrong and I truly believe that constantly expecting me to behave better as I was the oldest was one of their mistakes.  But then I am probably biased!

We need to watch our language with our kids and make sure that we label the behaviour as “wrong” or “naughty” rather than the child.  A child is not going to have a healthy value of their own worth if they believe that they are naughty and evil.  So next time you discipline your child (and all children need discipline at times!), try to remember to use appropriate language.  If they have hit another child, then you could say “hitting is naughty” rather than say “you are really naughty”.

Let your children solve their own problems or at least attempt to do so. Obviously the type of problem they are able to resolve will depend on their age.  For example, if an older child wants the best trainers for football, try and encourage them to think of ways that they can earn some money towards the cost of the trainers. 

For younger children you could let them do their own school homework.  An example of this happened to my friend recently.  Her son, aged 5, was asked to make a castle and bring it into school the next week.  So my friend gave him some cereal boxes, glue and crayons and he was very proud of his castle.  The only help my friend gave was to do some cutting for him.  His pride in his own work took a beating when they arrived at school to find that the parents of his classmates had obviously decided that the homework was meant for them.  A section of the castles had moats filled with water whilst others had pink turrets made from bricks. 

You probably can see the picture.  If you have spent any time at a school with your child, you have seen this scene before.  My friend’s son cried his eyes out. But my friend told her little boy that it didn’t matter what the other castles were like – he had made him himself and that is exactly what the teacher wanted.  His very wise teacher obviously agreed as she judged his cereal boxes as the winner and he got pride of place in the classroom.

In raising a confident child, motivation is one of the greatest gifts you can give them.  Children who are not motivated are down, depressed, bored, listless etc.  Not a happy picture is it?  Kids are born believing they can do anything – look at any toddler who learns to walk.  He will never believe he cannot do it – he falls over again and again but he always gets back up until one day he walks on his own.  So it is very distressing to see children, particularly young children, lose that belief in their inner abilities.