10 Ways to Build Your Child’s Confidence

Building a child’s confidence is a job that starts at a very young age, but is as crucial as picking the right school system for him. If you want to make sure that your child will be a confident, happy kid, these top ten tips will help.

1. Establish a physical bond with your child early on. A close physical bond can help your child feel safe in the world during their formative years. Using something along the line of a baby carrier that supports skin-to-skin contact can help with this once you’re past the newborn age.

2. Allow them to fall down and fail occasionally. Believe it or not, kids will learn that failure isn’t the end of the world if you let them make mistakes. In fact, showing them that it’s important to try again will make them realize that failing is a part of life. They will feel more comfortable with taking risks, which in turn will make them more confident in their ability to recover easily.

3. Teach them to stand up to bullies. By explaining to them that it’s okay to stand up for themselves, you’re teaching them that it’s okay to rely on themselves to do the harder things in life. Many parents have noted positive changes in confidence after they enrolled their children in self-defense classes, too.

4. Be responsive to your child during your child’s early years. When a child cries out for food or milk, it’s because they need you. Being responsive to your child’s needs and cries shows your child that you view them as precious, and as a priority. What can be more confidence-boosting than that?

5. Be positive. Kids thrive under positivity, and parents that are regularly healthy and happy will make children feel happier, too. It’s hard to deny that seeing happy people also happens to be confidence-boosting for adults, too.

6. Call your child by his name. Oh, what an amazing impact just saying someone’s name can have! Children who hear their names on a regular basis often have a better sense of identity, and also have a tendency of feeling like they matter. You can never go wrong with saying your child’s name. After all, don’t you like it when your parents called you by name instead of “Here, kid!”

7. Encourage your child to discover his or her own talents. A child who sees that they can do great things is a child who will always be a bit more confident than his or her peers. It doesn’t matter if his talent is art, sports, or even video games, either. By encouraging your child’s exploration and praising their good work, you’re showing them that they’ve got value in their talents, and that will build their confidence more than anything else.

8. Praise your child whenever he accomplishes something difficult. Tossing empty praise at a child can do more harm than good, but that doesn’t mean that you should never compliment your kid when he actually achieves something difficult to do. When your child actually has to work for praise, that praise will mean a lot more. It also will give them a more realistic outlook on life, too.

9. Teach your child to accept other people from different backgrounds. If you want your child to feel confident in a world that may or may not accept her due to circumstances out of control, make an effort to show them that you and those around you accept and appreciate people of different backgrounds. Teaching them to accept others will make them feel more confident around people of other backgrounds, regardless of how old they are.

10. Keep an eye out for bad influences. Whether it’s just the possibility of hanging with the wrong crowd in school, or something much worse, a child’s exposure to bad influences can definitely eat away at his or her self-esteem. Curbing negative people and lessons in your child’s life can be difficult, but it can seriously help them mature in a confident, healthy manner.

It’s important to realize that confidence is something that is built up over time. Be patient with your child, and also make a point of it to reinforce their confidence every single day. With hope and hard work, it will pay off in the end.

Author Bio: A parenting writer, Regina empowers women through her writing and parenting tips. If she’s not writing, you can catch her surfing the web for what’s new at Fertile Mind.