Confidence Part 1

What are we afraid of?

 “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you must look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”   Eleanor Roosevelt

If we are to gain confidence by every experience in which we look fear in the face, we must also confront a question: What are we doing that makes us afraid?

Many times in my life, I have run away from the things I fear. Or I have put it off until it became more painful not to do it than to do it. I know I am not alone in these actions, because I often have heard people speak on this topic.

I have found as a mother of two awesome girls that I don’t want them to go through life the way I have. I want them to break free of the same chains that may have prevented me from being the person I knew I could be. I want them to be all they can be. But how can I make that happen?

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Confidence is gained by the experiences in which we face fear.” Does that mean I must let my children do something they are afraid to do? Must I encourage them to do something that scares them? Will I need to lead by example and do something that I am afraid to do?

The answer to all of the above questions is the same: yes!

Confidence is like the ocean tide: sometimes we have a great amount, similar to high tide.   Sometimes we have very little — low tide. Our lives are no different than the ocean’s currents. We need to realize this and make our children aware of it. Once we have this awareness, life when we don’t have very much confidence becomes more bearable. We experience no guilt or self-condemnation that we are failures. It is just a process of life over which we have no control, like the receding of the water at low tide. But we can take steps needed to move forward into confidence.

What are some steps you can take to build your child’s confidence during the low tides of life?

First, find an activity your child has accomplished. Is it riding a bike, hitting a home run, catching a fly ball, winning a chess game, making an art piece, knowing how to spell,  being good at math, graduating from kindergarten? Everyone is good at something.

Take pictures of your child achieving in that activity and write words of encouragement or quotes around the picture to create a success notebook. This can be taken out and reviewed when confidence is low. Your child can relive the event through the words and pictures. His eyes will see the results of his achievement, his hands can touch the picture and the book. He can read words written about his great achievement. This will impact  several senses and learning abilities, helping his confidence to grow.  

Other ways to record successes include writing your child’s achievements on pieces of paper and connecting the pieces together to form a success chain than can circle a room.

Post your child’s success stories on a bulletin board with so they are visible every day.

These activities bring the child’s successes to the front of his mind. He will see where he has been, increasing his confidence to succeed when faced with fearful challenges in the future.