No parent wants his/her kids to lose heart when faced with challenges in life. All that it takes at that moment is a little patience and lots of confidence to let that challenging moment pass away. We all have gone through it, haven’t we? There is a lot of responsibility on the parents to make their children grow up into confident, emotionally strong independent adults because of two obvious reasons – one, they spend most of their time with their parents and second, they learn most of the things from the parents for their entire lives. So, here are 7 ways to enhance the confidence of your child.
- Give them a lot of love and affection
This seems obvious, but the most important of all. Kids should feel that they are loved and cared for, no matter what they are. This begins with the family and then extends to other spheres like friendships, schools and the society. If you commit any parenting mistake which makes them feel insecure, never feel shy to go to your child, give it a warm hug and say you are sorry and you love him/her a lot. This will definitely instill self-confidence in your child.
- Praise where it is due
Children, especially young ones value themselves on the basis of what their parents think of them. So, make sure you reinforce your child with positive feedback and hugs and kisses. Remember to be realistic in your praises. If they do something wrong or are not able to achieve something, tell them that it is OK not to do everything perfectly. Tell them it is OK to fail sometimes. Let them know that some things need a lot of patience and repeated effort and that it is fine to move on after putting in the best of the efforts with no avail. Through this, you are introducing your child to a few harsh realities of life and encouraging him to accept them. Also reward their achievements with cool science gifts that they will love, as a part of reinforcement.
- Be a role model
It is a well-known fact that kids always turn to their parents while trying to learn. So, parents must be role models to their kids even in matters where a lot of confidence is needed. Talk to your child openly about the difficulties in your life and convince them how you are dealing effectively with them.For example, if your problems with your short-term memory, never feel shy to talk to your child about that and tell them what coping techniques you use to overcome it. You could say something like this – “I often forget to take the shopping list to the mall. But from the next time, I will take a picture of it, just in case.”
This convinces them that they need not be perfectionists all the time in everything. They will accept their shortcomings and will work on improving them.
- Teaching Resilience
Resilience simply means “Bouncing back”. Life is full of ups and downs. While ups can throw us up to the sky, downs take us to the depths of the ocean. Teach your kids to prepare themselves to bounce back when faced with a challenging situation in life. Tell them to persist till they achieve and also make them feel comfortable in accepting their failures without humiliation or shame. You could gift them some funny mugs with inspiring quotes on them to keep their spirits high. Make sure you don’t humiliate or insult them when they fail. Instead, tell them how they could succeed the next time.
- Encourage their adventures and instill independence
Self-confident children often try to try out new things and expand their horizon. Supervise your kids from a side-line when they are in the process of exploring without making them feeling hesitant to try new things. For example, you could demonstrate to your young kids on how to make sandwiches and let them prepare their own, without your interfering. Other things like trips with friends, classmates or cousins, try new hobbies and so on will help instill the essence of adventure and independence in them.
- Teach them to Love Themselves
People who love themselves turn out to be very self-confident. To teach self-love, first, you should start loving yourself. Reward yourself for even a small accomplishment and make sure your child is a part of the celebration. Talk to them about the challenges you faced and how you overcame them.
- Encourage sports adventures
Let your kids take an active part in sports. Sports not only help maintain physical health but also help to learn the values of resilience, teamwork, accepting failures, working on improvement and so on. So, encourage them to take up sports seriously.
These were a few tips on how to boost the confidence of your child. Self-confidence and self-esteem are to be instilled in children at a very young age so that they stay with them forever. Parents have a major role to play in it. Happy Parenting!!