How Healthy Self-Confidence Can Affect Your Child's Ability To Learn A New Skill

Children often think they are invincible. From a very young age, many children seem unafraid to try new things and to meet new people. This is all thanks to self-confidence and healthy self-esteem – but it’s something that can dwindle as your children age, which can have an impact on their learning.

Wondering how to know if your child has the self-confidence they need, how it can impact their ability to learn, and what you should do to help foster self-confidence in them? Read on to find out how healthy self-confidence can affect your child’s ability to learn a new skill – and what you can do to boost it.

How Is Your Child’s Self-Confidence?
How a child feels about themselves is often described as self-esteem or self-confidence. It can seem easy to tell if your child feels good about themselves or if they don’t, but sometimes parents can use a little help in understanding from the outside just how their child feels about themselves.

Kids who have a lot of self-confidence usually feel like they’re liked and accepted by other people. They are proud of their accomplishments and have positive thoughts about their abilities. Most importantly, they believe in themselves and what they’re capable of.

A child with low self-confidence, however, is often very critical – you might say they’re hard on themselves. They feel as if they aren’t as good as the other kids around them, and often lack the confidence to do and try new things. They don’t think they can do things well and focus on their failures instead of their successes.

Why Self-Confidence Matters
How a child feels about themselves has an impact on everything they do, including learning. If they’re not confident in themselves or their abilities, they’ll be less likely to try new things or join in with their classmates on an activity. They may get frustrated and quit easily when learning something new, or let other kids treat them poorly.

Children lacking confidence also often have difficulty dealing with failure, which is something all kids are bound to experience. Instead of understanding when a mistake is made and learning from it, a child with low self-confidence will find it difficult to cope with their mistakes or failures and as a result may not achieve the heights they’re capable of.

Studies have found that children with high self-confidence are more motivated not only to keep trying when they encounter something difficult, but to ask for help when they need it. Asking for help is a valuable skill to have as a learner, so that’s part of why it’s so vitally important for a child to have positive self-confidence. Luckily, there are several ways parents can help to make high self-confidence a reality.

Developing Self-Confidence
Self-confidence doesn’t simply appear by itself. Kids develop it by working toward something and seeing rewards once they reach their goal – on repeat. Accomplishing something shows them that they can take on new challenges, and success helps them to feel good about themselves, even if they make mistakes or fail.

Feedback from those around them when they do something well plays a huge role. Over time, that constant positive reinforcement helps to build self-confidence and high self-esteem in your child. As a result, a child with high self-confidence is resilient, feels as if they’re respected, isn’t afraid to act independently, feels in control of their lives, and takes responsibility for their actions. They also feel secure in forming relationships with both adults and children their age.

How Parents Can Help Build Self-Confidence
It is possible to help your child build the self-confidence they need to be successful. They can learn to value themselves and improve how they see themselves. This can be helped along if parents do the following:

• Praise kids. Your child must be taught to be proud of their efforts and what they accomplish. Parents should praise their children and make sure their kids know when they’ve worked hard through positive recognition.
• Be supportive but realistic. The adults in a child’s life need to find a way to balance praise with realism. It’s OK for children to fail and to stumble as they learn, so they can’t be overprotective, either. Remember, you want your children to learn to improve themselves, and that happens by sometimes making mistakes. Simply offer your child support and be there no matter if they win or lose.
• Encourage friendships. Building friendships is a huge part of building self-confidence for a child. They don’t have to be the most popular kid in school, but they do need friends who accept them for who they are. Allow and encourage your child to connect with others and make friends.
• Build up their strengths. Every child is good at something, so help your child discover what their strength is and help them to build on it – in turn building up their self-confidence.
• Be patient. Life can be hectic, but you must give your child the time they need to learn new things. You may need to help them at first, but after they catch on, your patience can help them to feel proud of what they’ve done.
• Be a good role model. Are you putting effort into the tasks you take on each day? If so, then you’re setting a good example for your child that will help them build appropriate self-confidence in their ability to take on tasks and get them done.

Self-confidence is so important to your child and their ability to learn, so do what you can to support them.

Featured image by Kiana Bosman on Unsplash