7 Tips to Help Your Child Confidence

 

 

 

 

Ruth was one of my best friends in elementary school. She was not the most talented student, nor the most intelligent.

 

She was not the best student in class. But she had great confidence. She had this special attitude of “I can do it”. Later, after graduation,

 

she went on to work for a corporation. I followed her career, when she went up the corporate ladder, and finally landed a very prominent,

 

central position at her company.

I saw her take on projects that took major skills, I thought she didn’t have. She just attacked each project using this “can do” attitude,

 

 

 

and she always found the right resources to either acquire the skills she needed, or found the right people to take on the assignments she could not perform herself. I was amazed at her achievements.

 

From observing Ruth and many other people around me in my career,

I learned a very important lesson: one’s confidence determines one’s career. A person can be a genius. He can be most qualified for a job.

 

If he doesn’t believe that he can do it, he might not even take on the assignment in the first place. If he does take it on, most likely he will not be as successful as he could.

 

Just a few weeks ago,

I had a conversation with Tammy, another friend of mine. She is a very talented psychologist, very respected at her work place and by her superiors. She told me about a position that has become available at her office.

 

I thought that it would be a fabulous opportunity for Tammy, but she said that she is not going to apply for this position, because she doesn’t have enough experience,

 

 

 

 

she does not have the skills needed,

and it will take at least another 5 years for her to be able to fulfill this position. Whether Tammy was right or not in her assessment,

 

I think that this incident proves my point: confidence is a deciding factor for how successful one will be.

 

So how do we make sure our child develops strong confidence in his ability? In my opinion, this is one of the major issues in parenting. All educators need to ponder this and make sure they support confidence.

 

Here are a few suggestions that can make a huge difference in your child’s confidence:

 

1. “You can do it”.

Say it to your child often. Teach your child to say to himself, when he attempts to conquer a challenging assignment: “I can do it”.

 

It is very noticeable that when working on a Math problem, again, confidence is the deciding factor. A student who doubts his own ability to solve the problem,

 

may not apply himself in trying to solve the problem. He will easily say “I can’t do it” or “it’s impossible to solve this”. A student with strong confidence will try until he finds the solution.

 

Help your child, by reminding him that he can do it. Teach him to say to himself, “I can do it!”.

 

 

2. Don’t criticize your child when he attempts an activity.

Don’t correct him. It is so tempting to correct a child, when you see him doing something “wrong”. You watch your child coloring, or trying to write, at an early age.

 

He is holding the pen in an awkward position, and your mind is screaming “You hold the pen like this, not like that!”. Exercise discipline – don’t do it!

 

Should you let your child hold the pen incorrectly? No,

of course not! But let him do his research, his experimentation. Let him try different ways to hold the pen, and find out by himself what is most efficient. If you want,

 

you can take your own pen, and your own paper, and do some writing right next to him. He will watch you, and see how you hold the pen. I am sure that he will try your method, and come to his own conclusion.

 

My neighbor Chris visited me with his 4 year old son,

Nick. In order to keep Nick happy and busy, we gave him some crayons, pencils and paper, so that we could have our own conversation.

 

As Nick was trying to write his name, holding the pencil in a slightly awkward position, writing some letters that had no resemblance to the letters in his name,

 

 

his father jumped up,

yanked the pencil out of his hand, wrote the name down in front of him, and said, “What happened to you! This is wrong, this is how you write your name!”

 

Nick is a very serious child,

who attempts everything to the best of his ability. As I looked at him, I noticed the expression on his face.

 

It was very troubled.

He laid the pencil down, and refused to try any more. What is the message Chris has given to his son? I think that the thought that went through Nick’s head was,

 

“I am not good at this”. Okay, I give you 3 guesses: how good is Nick’s handwriting now, at age 8? – You guessed it! It is not good.

 

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