Promoting Confidence in Young Children before Starting School

As a parent and educator of young children, one thing I desire for them is to enter school life prepared and armed with the skills they need to be successful. The most important skill that comes to mind is the ability to be confident.

Confidence is a feeling of emotional security that results from faith in oneself. It is a firm belief in one's powers, abilities or capacities.

Parents and teachers play a major role in developing young children's confidence. Adults' reactions tell children if they approve or disapprove of their efforts, which in turn influence children's self-evaluation. If children are encouraged to problem solve and their efforts in addition to their successes are recognized their confidence is being promoted.

Criticism and blame diminish confidence. Verbal and physical abuse damage children's feelings of emotional security and faith in themselves. If we desire for children to be confident, we must model the behavior. Self confident people are optimistic, independent, proud of their efforts, able to handle criticism, and emotionally mature. Self-confident people also inspire self-confidence in others.

We must help children to understand that life is full of ups and downs. They need to understand that when they encounter obstacles sometimes they will succeed and sometimes they will fail in overcoming them. This makes them realists, not perfectionists. If children always fail, they will lose the validation they need to develop confidence. If they always succeed, they will not know how to react to failure. Real confidence requires an understanding of the possibility of failure while still pursuing a solution.

Here are some things you can do to develop a child's confidence skills:

• Describe one of your challenges during the course of the day with children.
  


• When you are faced with a problem talk about it with the children.
  


• Make sure the children know the meaning of the word confidence.
  


• Encourage children to try something new and challenging.
  


• When a child accomplishes a difficult task, encourage them to write or draw a picture about it then create a class book about various successes including your own.
  


• Avoid perfectionism. It leads children to believe that anything less than perfect is unacceptable.
  


• Encourage persistence and allow ample enough time for children to focus on tasks.
  


• Take time to listen and respond constructively to children's work.
  


• Provide lots of opportunities for children to practice problem solving. When children solve problems, they feel confident.
  


• Foster creative and critical thinking skills by encouraging children to use objects in new ways.
  


• Encourage children to talk out loud when solving problems.
  

The skill of being confident develops over time. That's why it's important to start teaching this skill at an early age. It is an attitude that reflects a positive and realistic perception of self and abilities. Confidence is learned, not inherited, and is develops from inside out. Each one of us builds our own level of confidence, layer by layer, from the experiences we encounter and how we manage these experiences. Confident children meet challenges with optimism and persistence. They are able to make decisions and choices without the influence of adults or peers.