6 Ways to Build Confidence in Your Child

*Collaborative Post

They say fake it until you make it. And that reflects the crucial role confidence plays in a person’s success. 

As a parent, you have two primary goals concerning your kids. One, they should be equipped with the necessary skills to succeed in life. And two, they should be confident in those skills.

Building confidence in your children is not only crucial for their “worldly” success, but it’s also vital for their mental health. After all, a child who has dangerously low levels of self-esteem is bound to feel stressed, depressed, and unproductive all the time. This is something you don’t want, so here are 6 ways you can avoid it.

Develop confidence in yourself first 

As a rule of thumb, before trying to instil a habit or personality trait in your child, you should first adopt it yourself. The same is true for confidence.

You might know that children are born as empty slates. And a major part of their learning comes from observing the people around them. Since your child spends most of their time with you, they are very likely to adopt how you act in difficult situations.

So start by tackling difficulties with optimism and confidence and make sure your child sees this. You should also be open about your anxiety and doubts, so your child knows that it’s human to be scared (and that confidence can be practiced despite anxiety).

Connect your child with a good teacher 

It’s common knowledge that children hold their teachers in extremely high regard, especially during their early years. That’s why many parents resort to requesting teachers to counsel their children out of bad habits when their own efforts fail.

And this is why having a good teacher (read mentor) is extremely important for your child’s self-esteem.

A supportive teacher not only protects your child from school bullies but also encourages them to be their best versions. Many children feel more comfortable discussing certain issues with their teacher (instead of their parents), and a good teacher never denies them this opportunity.

Sharing their issues without the fear of judgement is crucial for your child’s esteem, and having a good teacher provides them with one extra outlet. Now, although it’s practically impossible for you to choose your child’s teachers at school, you can connect them with a great mentor via private tutoring. You can get private tutoring from Spark and also other online tutoring platforms like Cluey Learning have made private tutoring extremely affordable and time-saving, so make sure to check them out.

Also, in case you’re interested, here are some more ideas on why teachers are so crucial for children and why you should consider becoming one. 

Let your child fail 

Many parents are super-sensitive about their children’s failure. They think failure will shatter their child’s self-esteem, so they go to ridiculous lengths to avoid it. In case failure occurs, they lose their sleep over it. 

You must realize that confidence is truly tested when one fails, which is why failure is an excellent opportunity to build self-esteem in your child. Let your child know that they’ve got your back but let them deal with their shortcomings independently.

It’s also essential that you deal with your own failures gracefully. Otherwise, your child will come to believe that failure is something bad and must be avoided at all costs. In reality, confident people don’t let the fear of failure get in their way of success. If your child starts fearing failure, it’s going to be very hard to turn them into a confident individual.

Every time your child fails, make sure to help them see the silver lining. Talk to them about the positives they can extract from this experience and explain that the road to success is difficult. But again, don’t scramble to sort out their problems for them. Here are some practical ways to help your child embrace failure.

Ensure good exposure

Although we can talk about the “theory of confidence” all day, it’s really a practical phenomenon. The greater your child’s exposure to the world, the higher their confidence will be. As a parent, your job is to ensure that your child gets plenty of opportunities to practice and build their confidence.

Finding out the aspects of their life they feel the least confident about and then providing them with opportunities to counter this is a good idea. For example, some children get extremely nervous when it comes to social interaction. If this is the case with your child, you can find age-appropriate social activities for them to participate in.

You should also encourage your child when trying out something new, especially if they don’t feel too confident about it. Even slight discouragement and disapproval can spoil new experiences for children, so make sure you don’t exude any negative energy as your child explores the world.

Finally, it would be best if you kept your child from spending too much time on the internet. The internet is a safe, comfortable area to hide behind from the real world, and can act as a barrier to confidence-building. So make sure your child’s internet use is healthy!

Let your child take risks and make age-appropriate choices 

With increased exposure comes the opportunity to take healthy risks and make your own decisions. And as a parent, you must not force your decisions on your child. And neither should you stop them from taking healthy risks.

If you think about it, confidence is most tested in two situations — when you’re making an important choice and when you’re taking a risk.

If you don’t allow your child both of these from an early age, they’ll never feel confident when it comes to making difficult choices and taking real risks later in life.

Teach your child to set small, practical goals 

Setting and achieving small goals is a quick way to feel more confident. If you can teach this skill to your child from an early age, it can go a long way in helping them nudge out of bad days in the future.

Discover your child’s short- and long-term ambitions, and help them articulate clear, practical goals to work towards their dream. Here are some ideas that can help you teach your child the art of goal-setting. 

*This is a collaborative post. For further information please refer to my disclosure page.