Confident Boys

Not all children are confident. Some may never be, (although we hope not), some children grow in confidence over time and some children may have been confident and then suddenly seem to not be anymore. We may not always know why a child loses their confidence despite having a good guess. When a child loses confidence it can be through bullying, teasing, being told by a teacher that their work was not as good as it usually is, a throwaway comment or a friend may have excluded them in some way. There are so many reasons. One person may be responsible for your child’s lack of confidence or it may be a collective group of incidents. Regardless it will have made them question who they are and their abilities and made them feel like they never want to say or attempt to do something again. An increase confidence in children is needed so they start t feel good about who they are and what they stand for.

Ways To Increase Confidence In Children

It is our role as parents to help them restore their confidence and we can do this through helping them to see who they are and what they are capable of.

  1. Get them to make a list of the traits they have and what makes them a good friend, son, daughter etc.
  2. Remind children of the feelings they had when they accomplished something new
  3. Encourage them to spend time with people they love and who love them
  4. We can get them involved in a new project or activity that will push them out of their comfort zone and see they can enjoy it
  5. Help them develop a positive self-image of themselves. What is special about them and what do they like about themselves
  6. Act it. Through role playing they can create the feelings of confidence and then act confident so that they feel stronger and able. ‘Fake it until you make it’ is a good term to use. Sometimes we don’t feel confident but no-one would ever guess we weren’t as we look it.

Children want to be confident to be able to deal with any situation they find themselves in and have the ability to present themselves well. These tools and strategies can be a good start to getting your child’s confidence levels up. Let me know how you get on!

There are lots of useful stories around confidence building in Being Me (And Loving It). It doesn’t just have stories but activities and dicussion points too.