“The exhausting cycle of constantly monitoring their work and performance...makes children feel less competent and confident.” — Elizabeth Kolbert

It is commonly believed now that failure is good for kids and they learn better from their mistakes and become resilient. But if parents don’t support their kids at the time of failure then all they learn is that they are failures. Resilience does not come from failing but from the process of learning that you can pick up lessons from your mistakes and improve on them to do better every time. For children apart from succeeding on every trial subsequently, it also requires lot of emotional support. 

It would be great to have a child full of confidence and spark. But it is tough to be a kid. More and more kids are getting bullied. The peer pressure and stress to excel academically is a lot for children to handle. This makes bolstering children’s self esteem and confidence even more important. 

What is Self Confidence?

Self confidence comes essentially from a sense of competence. Positive and realistic perception of her abilities is what a self confident child needs. The encouraging words from parents on even smallest of achievements can help child build the self confidence. 

Lets discover some tips to help your child boost the confidence and prepare her for future challenges.

1. Stop Controlling And Start Coaching Your Child
   

As a parent you must try to provide your child with ample learning possibilities along with motivating your child, providing support to develop and flourish. Think of yourself as a coach. Like in sports, a coach teaches the child how to play but the child plays her own game. Similarly don’t try to control your child but coach her the right lessons. A great way to do this is to do things with her to show how to do it properly. This will motivate and help building the confidence. This also means that we parents have to manage our own anxiety and relax by letting go off our need to take control of things. 

2. Love Your Child

Isn’t it obvious, you might thing? We cannot stress upon this enough. The love and time are the two most simple but the most important things that you can give to your child. Children look up to the parents as their safe place. They must always have that feeling that they will be loved no matter what. Your child needs to be accepted and loved, and this feeling and expectation starts from parents and family. This gives them confidence and hunger to do better next time. 

If you sometimes end up yelling at the child or pointing out mistakes in out of proportion way, just hug and say sorry. This will give them the confidence that even parents can be wrong but trying better the next time is the way to go. This will boost confidence in the child like nothing else. 

Praise your child wherever it is required. Let them know their positive achievements and appreciate on that. Confidence will get a boost with this. Positive feedback should be there but must be realistic. It is important to keep the child grounded as well. Praise the effort but not unnecessarily the result where it is the case. It is important for the child to know that it is okay to not have the desired results every time, it is the effort that should be 100% from your side. 

3. Help Your Child In Setting Realistic Goals

Guide your child to set realistic goals for herself in order to avoid disappointments. The goals must be set slowly seeing the reality and approach-ability. For example, if the child is starting to learn soccer but has goals to play in Olympics team, and if she fails to make it to the university team then the failure might be too much to handle, especially if she is still eyeing Olympics. Setting your eyes at the big prize can be motivating, but it is equally important to stay grounded and realize that failure is a possibility too. Make your child understand the thin line between confidence and over confidence. Once the child learns this nothing can stop her from prospering in future. 

4. Teach Resilience

No human can possibly succeed at everything he sets foot in. There will be setbacks, failures, criticism and self doubt. This is a harsh reality that children must understand. It is important for parents to teach their children to take these hurdles as experiences in life rather than dwelling in these disappointments. 

Teach the child to never give up and keep on trying. But it is equally important to teach the child to validate the failure. It is okay to sometimes fail. Learn from that and move on. One should be a gracious winner and a humble loser. Let your children confide in you and share their feelings. Support them no matter the result and cheer them up. 

5. Remember That Perfection Is Not The Goal

As a parent you must resist the urge to improve the task of your children. Don’t let them feel that what they are doing is not enough or good. This lowers their confidence a lot. Constant intervention by parents can undermine the child’s confidence and might prevent him from learning. 

6. Help The Child Build Confidence By Tackling The Challenges That Are Manageable By Her

Demonstrate the child some easy but new task and let her try the hand in it. Once she succeeds the confidence will get a boost by conquering a new task. This is scientifically known as ‘scaffolding’. Provide the child with help or guidance as required. Scaffolding also teaches the child that a help can be asked for if needed.

7. Encourage Your Child

Encouraging provides positive motivation and confidence to the child. Encourage your child to keep on trying and never to lose hope. These mantras will always be boosting the confidence in your child for a brighter future. 

As parents it is our duty to motivate our children and instill confidence in them that will prepare them for all the future challenges and endeavors.