A confident child is a child who is proud of their abilities and is willing to try new things. Children with positive self esteem are more capable of dealing with frustrating situations and managing difficult scenarios. Here are 5 ways to boost your child’s confidence:
Give your child the opportunity for small accomplishments:
Try giving your child opportunities throughout the day to feel accomplished and successful. For example, you might ask your child to complete age appropriate tasks, such as:
- Setting the table for breakfast
- Putting their clean clothes away
- Choosing the menu for dinner
- Choosing which playground to go to
- Putting away the groceries
These small accomplishments help your child to see that they make a difference to their household and that their choices matter.
Listen to your child’s interests:
Observe your child and pay attention to their interests. Whenever possible, try to encourage your child’s interests and motivate them to try new things. For example, if your child enjoys music, you might encourage them to try:
- Dance classes
- Piano classes
- Theater camps
- New creative music games
Their confidence will blossom when they understand that they can tackle and excel at new activities.
Praise small things specifically:
Praise goes a long way when developing your child’s confidence. When praising your child, be sure to use specific statements. Instead of using phrases such as, “good job” or “great work,” try statements such as:
- I’m proud of how you tried a new strategy when you saw that wasn’t working.
- I’m impressed with how you tried that puzzle piece in a few ways, to see where it fits.
- Wow, it’s great to see how you sorted the blocks like that.
This specific praise encourages your child to try new things and to develop a growth mind-set where they can overcome frustrations.
Model what it looks like to have confidence:
Children learn from what they see, so one way to show them what it looks like to have confidence, is to model it for them. Show positivity towards the things you do each day, and model positive self-talk. For example, you might say:
- “This activity seems like it might be challenging, but I’m going to work hard to figure it out.”
- “I’ve never tried doing something like this, but I’m going to read the directions to get it done.”
- “This makes me a little nervous, but I know if I take a deep breath, I can do it.”
Even if self-esteem is something you struggle with, try to find times that you can model positive self-talk for your child to observe.
Let them overhear you giving praise:
Giving specific and direct praise to your child is one way to boost your child’s self esteem, but another way to accomplish this is to have your child overhear your praise. For example:
- When talking on the phone with grandma, you might say, “I was so proud of Billy today for trying a new game during play time.”
- You might turn to a stuffed animal and say, “Puppy, did you see how hard Lily was working to solve that problem?”
- When dropping off your child to their teacher, you might say, “Johnny did a great job being flexible this morning when his pants got dirty.”
Small moments throughout the day provide perfect opportunities for your child to practice building their confidence levels. The more positive praise and positive self-talk you can provide for your child, the more likely your child will be able to tackle difficult situations, and have the confidence to try new things.