Life is all about confidence really; feeling confident and actually being confident goes a long way to making you feel happy and comfortable in yourself. People who lack confidence generally don’t do as well in life and don’t enjoy it as much.

For more people, we develop our sense of confidence as we grow up and mature, but unfortunately that means that some children are much less confident that we realise. The world can feel like a scary place to a 4 year old.

If you have young children, one of the best ways that you can invest in them is by helping them to be more confident, so here’s how to do just that:
Problem Subjects

If your child is struggling with a subject at school, they can easily fall behind the class, which only makes the problem worse and this can impact their confidence in other subjects too, even the ones they might otherwise be good at.

Your children probably won’t tell you they are struggling, but look out for signs, such as subjects that they don’t like, show little interest in or try to avoid and do your best to help them catch up and keep up with the class.

Strategic Complements

Every parent tells their children that they are wonder, beautiful and intelligent and to an extent children take these compliments with a large pinch of salt – particularly if they don’t believe it themselves.

Try to give your children some more specific compliments though. Children often don’t even realise the talents they have, so if you spot that your son very good at problem solving or that your daughter has a talent for organisation, tell them.

Once they know that they do have talents it will make them a lot less insecure about their weaknesses.

Listening Intently

Just like adults, every child wants to feel valued and listened to and even though the problems of a child may not seem like a big deal to an adult they are still very real to that child.

If your child is telling you about their day at school or something clever they have done, try your best not to be dismissive and talk to them as an equal. This can often be tough, particularly if you are busy with housework or other tasks, but a little effort can make a big difference.

Fear Of Failure

Kids will often assume that because they are not very good at something (especially something at school) you will be mad at them and the result is that parent/teacher meetings can be a scary time for them.

The reality is that criticism often isn’t helpful for a child and a better way to handle it might be giving them extra help covertly – possibly hiring a tutor to help them in problem areas.

Try to avoid telling your children that they are failing at a subject and instead focus on everything they are doing well. Make them aware how proud you are of them. The confidence boost alone may help them in the subjects they find hardest.

Getting Out A Bit

You can easily expand your child’s horizons outside of school too, and if your children find school particularly scary (as many do) this can be a good way to help them to grow away from the stresses of education.

Encourage your kids to participate in groups where they can make new friends and have fun doing so. In these sorts of groups they will often learn social and personal skills which they don’t necessarily learn at school.

By making new friends outside of school it can also help them to feel more content and even more confident at school. But above all else, sometimes forcing them out of their comfort zone can prevent them from becoming too introverted and make them more outgoing.

This is A Guest Blog Post from Ricky at UK Tutors

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