Confidence is a feeling that you are right in your decisions, your abilities and at steps, you are taking in your life in a positive way. It doesn’t mean confident people are arrogant which a feeling of superiority to others is. Confidence is an inner belief that you are capable.
When it comes to children better future, happiness, and successful career, confidence plays it vital role. Confident children can handle pressure tasks better, take responsibilities and perform in good manners, accept challenges without any fear of failure and lead from the front which makes them a great team leader.
Children which lack confidence back themselves from grabbing new opportunities and from try new things having the feeling of failure. Lack of confidence in children can back themselves in realizing their capabilities and from reaching their full potential.
Children’s parents and teachers are the key factors in building confidence in children and students. When they praise them on their accomplishments and skills they have, it boosts their confidence level.
It is duties of parents & teachers to build confidence in their children and students from their childhood because there is a famous quote by Roger Staubach
“Confidence comes from hours and days and weeks and years of constant work and dedication.”
Best practice for parents is to follow these simple guidelines to build confidence in their children.
Give your undivided attention to your child
Children are very sensitive and they recognize and notice each and every moment of what their parents are doing. Either they are really listening to their children or just doing acting of listening to them.
When parents give their undivided attention to their children and let them believe that they are important and valuable, it boosts their confidence level. It is best practice to set aside time out of your busy schedule and give your undivided attention toward your child by keeping yourselves away from electronics, work and from other distractions.
Teachers can also pay attention to their students by listening to their problems and by answering their queries. There are some tips to which can be following while giving attention to your child.
- Make eye contact when the child is saying to let him believe that you are actually listening to him.
- When a child has something to say, leave everything where it is and listen to your child.
- Help your child in expressing their feeling by showing your own.
Give those tasks which suit their age
When a child gets opportunities to show his skills and talent he has, he feels special and valuable. Giving small and age appropriated tasks to child help him feel that he is competent and he reaches his full potential to perform that task. This practice makes him responsible and boosts his confidence.
At home, you can give him a simple task like cleaning table, dusting, sweeping and doing dishes etc. In the classroom, the teacher can ask the student to do the simple tasks like erase the board, classroom decoration and monitor the class etc.
It is the duty of parents and teacher to recognize that in which task child has more interest. For example, give a task to the child to put the things in the right place in a room if a child has an interest in organizing the things. The teacher can ask the student to monitor the class if the student has an interest in leading. After completing those tasks, he’ll be more confident.
Help them in eliminating their anxiety
Anxiety is a feeling of nervousness and worry, either you would be able to perform a particular task with desired outcomes or not. Confidence and anxiety are related to each other. If your child is anxious, he will doubt his abilities and skills to perform a given task, which will decrease his confidence level. If your child is confident, he’ll perform any task without having anxiety factor because he is confident about his skills and capabilities.
Parents should help their children to eliminate their anxiety to boost their confidence level. Parents can also hire private tutor that will assist and tell the parents about how to tutor children with anxiety problems.
Make your time and play with your child.
Playtime is an important strategy to know the nature and mind of your child. When you choose to play with your child and let him lead, this step makes him worthy, important and boosts his confidence. Paying full attention to the play and sharing of thoughts bring you closer and emotionally connect to each other.
This strategy can also be implemented in schools by teachers. Merely teaching lesson should not be only duty of teacher but it is also necessary to make bonding and sharing of thought between students and teachers.
Provide them with a positive environment
Environment or surrounding in which child live is most important in building confidence. The more Child is surrounded by positive and confident people, the more positive, comfortable and confident he would be.
The first environment in which a child lives is his or her own house. So, it is the parent’s duty to create such an environment that should be safe, positive and should be filled with confident people. Parents should also be positive and confident because children start learning and adopting things from their parents.
The second environment from which child learn things is class room’s environment. Here a teacher plays an important role to create an environment that should be clear those children that are negative and pull back other children. Teachers should be a positive role model of their student.
The third environment is Child’s friend circle. Friends with a positive mind will always encourage, back up your child for taking a positive step and boost his confidence. Negative friends will always push him back, will think to harm your child and decrease his confidence level.
Don’t give an example of other
Most parents start comparing his child with others. For example,“he has a proactive approach, why you don’t’ have”.By saying this, you discourage your child and he becomes the victim of inferiority complex and ultimately loses his confidence level.
Most teachers do the same in the classroom. They compare one student with other and give example like “He has scored much better grade than you, why can’t you score like that”.This kind of statements really hurt the child’s feeling and he lacks confidence.
Encourage your child to try something new
Try new thing and successfully accomplishing it really boost the child’s confidence. Parents should encourage his child to try new things and develop new skills. A set of skills can lead to a successful career in the future. Even if a child fails in trying new things, encourage him by saying like that “you did very well and you will do much better next time”These words will give him a great level of confidence and he’ll try again and again until he doesn’t learn that things or skills.
Teachers can also encourage his students to develop new skills or to try new things. If a student is saying to try new thing then the teacher can encourage and back him up by saying like“you are competent and you can do it”. These kinds of statements fill a student with a great level of confidence.
Encouraging your child or student always boosts confidence and he can face anything that comes in their way.
Support and help them in finding their interest
It is Parents duty to help their child in finding their interest and then giving them task according to their interest. When a child gets a task to perform in which he has more interest, he performs it with his full potential and gains confidence as well.
Supporting your child in what he wants to do also boosts his confidence. It doesn’t mean to support your child when he is wrong. The teacher should also support their students. It is the duty of a teacher to create such opportunities or task in which student feel comfortable while performing and which suits his interest.
Overcome their fear of failure
Many children don’t try new things because of the feeling of failure which decreases their confidence level. Parents and teacher both should help children to overcome the fear of failure. If kids fail, parents can encourage them by saying like“winning or losing is part of life. Kids learn from their mistake, this time you have lost but next time you will be the winner”.Tell them inspirational stories like “story of a spider who was trying to reach the roof but every time it fails but spider continued its effort and got success” to boosts their confidence.
When children overcome the fear of failure then they perform the task with full potential without caring about the result. They can face any problem that comes in their ways.
Get their Advice or opinion
Taking your child’s advice or opinion to let him think that he is important and has something unique, boosts his confidence level. If you need some suggestions then there is no shame in asking for opinions from your child instead it boosts his confidence. Sometimes children give a better solution than older ones. Also, it is saying that the number of suggestion can lead to better decision making.
A teacher can also give opportunities to each student in a classroom to speak over a particular matter or a topic. This will boost the confidence level and will help the teacher in understanding each student mentality.
Help them in setting achievable goals
Parents and teachers both should help children in setting goals that are realistic and achievable. When children set unrealistic goals which cannot be achieved, they get the failure and In result loses confidence. Goals should be SMART(Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and time-bound) so that children can achieve it with full confidence.
Final Words: Confidence is like a spirit that gives life to a dead body. Confidence makes your child efficient, smart, valuable and unique. It is the most precious gift that parents and teachers can deliver to children and this gift would be with children throughout their life.
If you want to boost confidence in your children, follow above-mentioned strategies. Teachers and parents should give importance to kids, support them in the right matter, and make them feel competent, valuable and capable so that they can show their full potential and can achieve whatever they want to achieve w