Archive for the ‘praise’ tag
Raising a Confident Child
Maintaining self-confidence in the face of pressures from today’s society is a challenge, so parents should begin to teach confidence to their children at an early age. Girls are especially prone to having confidence issues that lead to bigger problems such as drug use and other destructive behavior. The task of instilling confidence in your child involves more than praising their job well done; it involves setting an example for your child. It’s possible that the most positive thing you can do for your kids is to be a happy, responsible, strong, and confident individual yourself.
It’s a proven fact that little girls as young as three and four can develop body image issues if they continually observe their mother strictly dieting and expressing negative feelings about her own body. Kids (or adults) of any age should not worry about being thin or conforming to society’s increasingly disturbing ideal of beauty. Teaching your daughter that beauty is only skin-deep and it’s what’s on the inside that counts won’t sink in if she sees you stressing about your weight or looks. Make health rather than appearance a goal in your life and your children will imitate you.
Sometimes, when trying to instill confidence, a parent can take things too far. A mother who struggled with body image issues as a teenager might overcompensate with her own daughter by giving excessive compliments and praise for her beauty. The daughter in turn will stop believing her mother’s praise and become extremely conscious of her appearance. While every parent wants their child to develop a positive body image, it’s better to focus your praise on her accomplishments, personality and behavior rather than on her looks. If a child learns to love who she is, she will learn to love her body in turn.
An invaluable skill you can teach your child is the ability to laugh at herself. Understanding how to look at mistakes and failures with a light heart and a sense of humor is an ability that will help her through all of her life. If your child can feel better about the slip-ups then she will learn that shortcomings are not the end of the world. Taking failure with a grain of salt will help your child excel in school, work and beyond.
As difficult as it is to stay confident in the face of society’s stresses and standards, it’s even more difficult to learn confidence when you’re exposed to it. That’s why it’s so important that confidence building begins when your child is young, before she goes out to face the world for herself.
