It is important to pay close attention to developing your child's self confidence as this is something that will carry over as they grow up. Most self confidence issues occur when they are young, and there are many reasons for why a child is lacking in self confidence. Keep in mind that your child requires constant validation and approval from you, and it is important to balance your praise with criticism when dealing with them.
As a parent or a teacher, it is your responsibility to motivate your child and help them build up their self confidence. It is a fine line to tread between teaching them what is right and wrong, and being too superfluous or critical in your comments. Below are some tips on how to build confidence in children.
1. Avoid Over Praising your Child
It is important to mean it when you encourage your child as they are able to differentiate when you mean it and when you don't. Avoid giving them praises that are all encompassing as it may cause them to be nervous as they know they are unable to meet your praise. Instead, try to be specific in your encouragement, and point out exactly what you are praising them for. This will help them to building self confidence.
Whilst it is good to motivate your child, constantly praising them without grounds may cause them to form a higher self opinion that is not based in reality. This can cause them a lot of problems in future.
2. Link your Comments with their Actions
Children require constructive criticism and praise, so make sure that there is a obvious correlation and linkage between what you say and what they have done. If your child has behaved, reward them for the behaviour and tell them why. Similarly, if they have misbehaved, they should be punished adequately in relation to their actions so that they can understand that it was wrong. Never mix praise and criticism as it causes confusion for them.
Remember that you should avoid personal attacks; it is the behaviour you are trying to change, and not the child. Try to treat the child like you would a peer, and avoid embarrassing them in front of other people. Take them aside if you need to speak to them about their behavior, as it teaches them respect and makes them more amenable to what you are saying.
3. Compare your child to themselves only
You should never compare them to their friends or relatives, but rather, to themselves. Whilst it may be tempting to use other children as role models or examples, this is actually highly discouraging for the child. Just as your improvement should be based upon your past results, so it should be for your child.
4. Be a good role model
Your children look up to you and are likely to mirror what they see in you. Hence if you suffer from poor self confidence, it will be difficult to help your child develop it as well. If you face this problem, work on improving yourself first before expecting your child to have a high self confidence.
5. Show them that you love them, unconditionally.
Lastly, by actively showing and telling them that you love them, it will help them to build their self confidence. This tells them they we appreciate them the way they are, and that we are there to guide and help them be better persons.
Undoubtedly, we have good intentions in trying to build confidence in children, and these 5 tips will help you to do it well. Your child craves attention, and if they don't get enough of your attention they may resort to negative behavior to get your attention.
If you suffer from poor self confidence as an adult, chances are you weren't a very confident child either. A lot of our insecurities were founded in our childhood, and as much as it is definitely possible to build up confidence as adults, wouldn't it be better if we never lost it in the first place?
Parents with confidence problems can unknowingly transfer their issues to their children. Some parents have an easier time than others hiding their insecurities from their children, but your situation could still have a negative effect.
Someone with poor self confidence can often come across as arrogant or unfriendly to strangers because of the way they fell about themselves. It works the same way with your family; it's really hard for people around you, especially children, to understand the difference between you feeling bad about you and you feeling bad about them.
Also, remember that your children look up to you and learn from you. If you treat yourself well and respect yourself, they will learn to do the same. For instance, little girls who grow up seeing their mother on diets all the time have a higher risk of getting eating disorders and body image problems later.
Of course you don't wish for your children to grow up with self-confidence issues. This is why it's important for you to help them build up confidence from they are young, and the first step of the process is to help yourself build up confidence.
The better you feel about yourself, the more you have to give to your children. Also, when you take care of yourself and learn to fee good about yourself exactly the way you are, you are also a good role model for yourself.
The most important thing you can do to help your children build up confidence is to show them a lot of love. I hear of way too many parents who never tell their kids how much they love them because they feel it goes without saying. Well, it does't. Children do not think like adults, and it's not a given for them that their parents love them. Remember that kids also tend to believe everything you say to them, so no matter how frustrated or angry you might be, never threaten to leave your children because they are behaving badly. It's a recipe for raising children with self esteem issues.
Don't punish you children by taking away your love and affection. They don't understand the lesson you are trying to teach them; all they learn is that love is not unconditional and that if they are bad their parents ma not love them anymore.
If you want to build up confidence in your child, you need to tell and show them every day how much they are loved. You need to let them know that they have your acceptance, exactly the way they are, and that nothing they could possibly do could take change the way you feel about them.
Your self esteem might have been damaged when you were a child, but you have a chance to prevent the same happening to your children. Start today by building up confidence in yourself, and then help build up confidence in them.
Both Gregory Frost & Jon Mercer are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Gregory Frost has sinced written about articles on various topics from Brain Power, Web Development and Cure Anxiety. Greg Frost is an in the field of confidence building and has an informative website at . They cover a whole range of. Gregory Frost's top article generates over 110000 views. to your Favourites.
Jon Mercer has sinced written about articles on various topics from Public Speaking, Cure Anxiety and Web Development. Discover the Easy Way to Breakthrough Confidence Re-programming System Proven to. Jon Mercer's top article generates over 27100 views. to your Favourites.