Raising Exceptional Girls

Confidence
Self-doubt and lack of confidence hold more kids back than any other factor.  They won’t be happy and achieve unless they feel confident in their abilities.

Real confidence-building is the most important skill you can develop as a parent.  Children with healthy self-esteem and self-confidence learn more, achieve more, have more friends and are generally happier than those with low levels of confidence.

But building a child’s confidence is complex.  It is not just a matter of becoming a praise robot heaping positive comments on kids at the first sign of them doing something well.  For some children praise is meaningless.

Confident kids take learning risks; they can separate themselves from failure or lack of success;  and they aren’t dependent on the approval of their parents.  I guess this last reason is why so many youngest kids are risk-takers as they are not as concerned as eldest kids about the approval of their parents

But knowing this is one thing.  Getting inside kids’ heads and shifting their thinking is another thing entirely.

“Self-esteem and confidence-building is more than developing children’s capabilities as very competent children can be filled with self-doubts.  You have to do more than teach them to be optimistic as a Pollyannish feel-good view of the world won’t mean a child will take risks when they meet real challenges.

You need to tackle children’s lack of confidence on a number of different fronts - that is, what they think, how they feel and what they do.”  Michael Grose.

Michael Grose has a number of resources if you would like to do some reading:
Bring out Your Child’s Confidence DVD
Confidence DVD
Confidence in a Box