Self-Confidence: How to Be a Confident Parent to a Confident Child
This week, we have a guest blog from Stephanie Ward who talks to us about self-confidence and her advice on creating a happy, confident child. We are looking at self confidence this week because it is one of the core values we hold at Skills4Parents. Here, Steph gives us her three top tips for nurturing confidence in your child.
I was not a confident child. I don’t say that to shock – it’s the truth. Someone who is self confident trusts in their own judgements and abilities. That was not me, despite what everyone thought. This lack of confidence spilled into adulthood and I used to question myself confidently. I was impulsive, often left wondering why I had done things. My life was chaotic.
When I first had my son, I became aware of how I lacked self-confidence as a mother. My boundaries were more like wet tissue paper! As my son grew up, I did a lot of reading to get myself ‘up to speed’ with this parenting lark and I read a lot of ‘anxious parents create anxious children’. Given that my son is also autistic, I knew I needed to take a hard look at myself and make sure I didn’t pass on the legacy to him.
Note, I’m not telling you to hide your anxieties and lack of self-confidence. That is incredibly dangerous to your mental health in itself. My journey involved learning more about myself and how to process anxieties, so that I could embody confidence in myself. Here are my tips for modelling self-confidence to your children, even if you’re secretly an anxious wreck:
Understand What Self-Confidence Is
It is important to understand what it means to be confident, and how that means you would show up in the world. I’ve put together these comparisons of what confident behaviour looks like, vs what insecure or confidence-lacking behaviours might look like.
Confident: I will do what I believe is right, even if others criticise me.
Not confident: I will do what everyone else is doing, even if it doesn’t feel right.
Confident: In the past, I would have done (action) where now I would do (action).
Not confident: I have done this but it must be wrong because others did (action)
Confident: Oh shucks, I made a mistake. Now I know how not to do it next time, and I will find a solution to put it right.
Not confident: Mistake? I don’t know what you’re talking about. You told me to do it like that. Anyway it wasn’t me. Someone else must have done that.
Confident: New thing to try? Oh goodness, ok, let’s give it a go! I can do this!
Not confident: I don’t know how to do that so it’s best I don’t try.
Confident: Hey, thanks for the compliment, I tried really hard on that so I’m pleased someone recognises that.
Not confident: Oh that? It was nothing. A handcuffed Koala could have done it.
Feel the Fear, and Do It Anyway
It is OK to feel a bit afraid of new things. It is OK to tell others that you feel this way. It is OK to tell your child that something worries you. Read that again.
BUT… do not avoid things because they appear daunting. If nobody ever took a risk, nothing would ever happen. Relationships would not exist. Technology would still be in the stone age.
One of my favourite examples of this is from Lost, when Jack (a doctor) is recounting an experience in surgery where he cut a blood vessel in a patient’s spinal cord, resulting in huge blood loss. Jack said he allowed himself to feel the fear for ten seconds. After those ten seconds, the fear was not welcome. He had to fix the problem or the patient would die. As an incredibly competent and self-confident surgeon, he knew he was the best chance the patient had to survive. And so he fixed the bleed, the guy survived, and everybody clapped.
I’m not telling you to pick up a scalpel. Just let your kids see you doing ‘hard things’. Glennon Doyle has a phenomenal podcast called We Can Do Hard Things which talks about being brave and drops the fake front to earnestly discuss the hard things in life. Definitely worth a listen.
Embrace Your Mistakes
If you’ve gone through life without ever making a mistake, you either live in a cave, or someone has protected you heavily. Everyone makes mistakes – it’s how we learn and how we grow.
Your child needs to know that it is OK to make mistakes, especially if they are party to your mistake. This is something I do with my son whenever I have the chance.
The first time I admitted a mistake to him, he asked if I did it because I was stupid. I told him no, that it was a mistake. Stupid is doing something on purpose knowing it is wrong. However, I did not leave it there. It is important, when admitting mistakes, that you place emphasis on what you are doing to rectify the wrong. It is also important to acknowledge that sometimes the solution is not easy.
Do you have tips for your child’s self-confidence? Join the conversation in Education Support 4 Parents.