The Surprising Way to Build your Child’s Confidence

I think all parents would agree that we want our children to feel confident and sure of themselves. That’s why we are constantly telling them how smart, cute, and amazing they are. Is that how children learn to feel good about themselves, though—by being told how great they are?
Let’s imagine that your seven-year-old daughter is drawing a picture. She seems pleased with her artwork at first, but then you hear her sigh and say something like, “This looks terrible!” You see her grabbing the paper, presumably to crumble it into a ball, so you quickly tell her, “Your drawing isn’t terrible! It’s beautiful. I love that drawing. You are such a wonderful artist!” This sounds like a good response to build her confidence; right? What I am about to share with you might feel counterintuitive at first but hear me out. Responding in this (quite understandable) way to your child does more to hurt the child’s confidence than help it. How can this be?
Well, for one thing: children are much more in tune to what the primary adults in their lives do than what they say. We parents tend to say a lot, so it can be disappointing to realize how much of what we say goes in one ear and out the other. Children remember best what they experience, witness, and/or figure out for themselves firsthand.
Even more importantly—and this is big— children who feel good about themselves have learned to trust themselves. Going back to the earlier example, when you tell your daughter that her drawing is spectacular even though she has already expressed that she dislikes the drawing, you are basically saying to her, “Don’t trust your own judgement; trust mine instead.” Respond in this way enough times, and children will eventually stop internally asking themselves what they think or feel. Have you ever been around that child who immediately runs to an adult the minute he or she accomplishes or completes an endeavor to ask the adult, “Do you like it? Do you like it? What do you think? Do you think it’s good?” That is a child who trusts himself so little, he needs feedback from an adult to make a subjective judgment about his own artwork, swimming dive, Lego creation, or whatever else.
How do you help a child trust himself more? The answer: Validate your child’s perspective. That would sound something like, “You really liked your drawing at first, but now you don’t like how it’s turning out,” or “You’ve decided that you think that particular drawing is terrible.” When you resist contradicting your child and simply reflect what your child has expressed, not only are you helping your child become more emotionally self-aware, but you are also sending the implicit message to your child that she can trust her own judgement and her own perceptions, opinions, and perspective.
Keep in mind that when you reflect your child’s point of view, you are not implying that you agree. For the purposes of this blog, we’ll consider only statements your child might say about himself, such as, “None of those pants look good on me!” or “I’m the ugliest person who goes to my school!” You likely wouldn’t agree with these statements, but that doesn’t make your child’s feelings less valid. You can still reflect what your child has said so that he feels heard, understood and his own perspective validated. Your child might’ve just won a school-wide academic award the previous week, but she could still come home from school one day saying that she feels stupid. When reflecting, you can also frame your child’s statement in ways that subtly puts it in perspective (ie “You’re feeling really unhappy with your clothes options right now”).
When children say positive things about themselves, it’s just as important to reflect (ie “You feel really good about how you did on your presentation in class today!”) rather than chiming in with your opinion and what you think about it. The point is that your child’s opinion and feelings matter, especially to your child.
The more your child learns self-trust and to value his or her own feelings and thoughts, the more confident and resilient your child will be.