Source: CCN 精彩大马
A child who is lacking of self-confidence is often perceived as anxious and afraid to take up challenges which would strongly hinder the growth of a child’s psychological health.
A child’s self-confidence is closely related to the parenting styles.
As a result, what can parents do to help a child to build up self-confidence?
A clinical psychologist, Ms Lee Li Li stated that, according to the Attachment Theory proposed by the British developmental psychologist John Bowlby, a child’s self-confidence is substantially influenced by those of their parents’ parenting styles.
"Self-confidence is slowly built up from the fetal period, and the sense of security of the fetus is the seed to develops self-confidence. A pregnant woman and her husband play an important role in the early stage of child confidence. The fetus gains sense of security through perception of the parents’ calm emotions, warm talking and positive responses towards him/her."
According to Ms Li Li, when babies become toddlers and young children, they are able to do some things all by themselves. They feel good about themselves when they can develop and use their new skills. Their self-confidence grows when parents pay attention and let go a child to try then give smiles and show them that they are proud. As children grow, self-confidence grows too. However, there are 5 common parenting that could easily cause sense of insecurity and incapability among children.
1. Being Overprotective
Parents who are overly protective of their children will deprive them for having the opportunity to develop their abilities. Self-confidence comes from a person's ability, especially being independent in life.
2. Harsh Criticism on Your Child
Parents who often do not acknowledge or always deny their children’s abilities would make them feel worthless, which could cause them to feel alienated by their parents. When a child feels lack of positive affirmation and support, the child would become passive and emotionally closed off. Some people worry that praising children too much would spoil them. Yet as a child's self-confidence grows, so does his or her sense of responsibility and competence.
3. Often Comparing Your Child to Others
Parents who often compare their children with others or criticise them in public would greatly undermine a child’s self-confidence.
4. Lacking of Life Values
Parents might focus more on academic studies and do not expose their children to life education and instil positive life values on them. This leads to sense of failure on children if they do not perform in academic. They do not have positive values as a support to move on or look at the failure in the positive way. As a result, they would give things up easily and tend to be afraid of challenging tasks.
5. Role Model For Being Confident
Parents are advised to present confidence to their children. A parent who do not have confident would be difficult to show a model to their children and the children might have difficulty to understand the form and elements of self-confidence.
In terms of the characteristics of low self-confidence, according to Ms Li Li, the children would present timidity and withdrawal, easy discouragement, arrogance, self-righteousness, tendency to follow group decisions, antagonism and so on.
“Other than that, a child with low self-confidence would be fear of being isolated from others and they present with herd mentality, poor problem solving skills and dependent on others.” However, a confident child would usually lively, cheerful, independent, decisive, will not give up easily, have self-control, and can establish interpersonal relationships with others.
"A confident children generally present high level of self-consciousness and self-control. They know the purpose and meaning of doing something clearly, and can restrain themselves according to certain requirements." said Ms Li Li.
When interacting with other people, a confident child knows how to take care of other people's feelings and needs. A child who lacks of self-confidence tend to shrink back in this regard and pay more attention to his/her own feelings.
She said that parents could help children to find their own values, discover their own strengths or interests and give them positive affirmation and encouragement, so that the children could enjoy their own values and strengths, and generate self-confidence through intrinsic way.
“For example, if children like to play drums, let them participate in drumming activities so that they have the opportunity to show their strength. " added by Ms Li Li.
"The various skills such as communication, socialization, leadership and so on that children learned in group activities could help them to become a more capable people and self-confidence could be developed in these ways."
In addition, she pointed out that high-sensitivity children are also very easy to become emotional and lose self-confidence due to the high level of information processing and overly ruminate at the same time.
"Highly sensitive children will feel 10 times, or even more on the same things compared with others. Anyway, please do not deny your child’s feelings by saying 'you think too much' or 'you are really sensitive'. You may try to empathize and accept the child’s feelings with words such as “You seemed feeling angry towards…”, “I know you are not happy with this” and so on. " explained by Ms Li Li.
She said that highly sensitive children have unique ideas about their own way of life, stubborn, and they will become defensive and feeling awkward when they are being corrected.
"If you continue to take severe reprimands, highly sensitive children will become more stubborn and panic. Self-confidence is tough to be established under this circumstance."
"At this time, parents could slowly guide them and make adjustment little by little."
According to the clinical psychologist again, although almost all patients with mental or psychiatric diseases present symptoms of low self-confidence, there is no relationship between a person with mental illness and a person who is lacking of self-confidence.
"According to countless researches, children with self-confident are superior in physical and mental health, interpersonal relationships, and professional achievement and vice versa. " Ms Li Li added.
Parents are the original confidence builders. Building children's self-confidence is an ongoing part of parenting. Parental involvement through early childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood communicates acceptance, acknowledgement, and admiration. This contributes significantly to the development of children’s self-confidence.
Source: CCN 精彩大马
A child who is lacking of self-confidence is often perceived as anxious and afraid to take up challenges which would strongly hinder the growth of a child’s psychological health.
A child’s self-confidence is closely related to the parenting styles.
As a result, what can parents do to help a child to build up self-confidence?
A clinical psychologist, Ms Lee Li Li stated that, according to the Attachment Theory proposed by the British developmental psychologist John Bowlby, a child’s self-confidence is substantially influenced by those of their parents’ parenting styles.
"Self-confidence is slowly built up from the fetal period, and the sense of security of the fetus is the seed to develops self-confidence. A pregnant woman and her husband play an important role in the early stage of child confidence. The fetus gains sense of security through perception of the parents’ calm emotions, warm talking and positive responses towards him/her."
According to Ms Li Li, when babies become toddlers and young children, they are able to do some things all by themselves. They feel good about themselves when they can develop and use their new skills. Their self-confidence grows when parents pay attention and let go a child to try then give smiles and show them that they are proud. As children grow, self-confidence grows too. However, there are 5 common parenting that could easily cause sense of insecurity and incapability among children.
1. Being Overprotective
Parents who are overly protective of their children will deprive them for having the opportunity to develop their abilities. Self-confidence comes from a person's ability, especially being independent in life.
2. Harsh Criticism on Your Child
Parents who often do not acknowledge or always deny their children’s abilities would make them feel worthless, which could cause them to feel alienated by their parents. When a child feels lack of positive affirmation and support, the child would become passive and emotionally closed off. Some people worry that praising children too much would spoil them. Yet as a child's self-confidence grows, so does his or her sense of responsibility and competence.
3. Often Comparing Your Child to Others
Parents who often compare their children with others or criticise them in public would greatly undermine a child’s self-confidence.
4. Lacking of Life Values
Parents might focus more on academic studies and do not expose their children to life education and instil positive life values on them. This leads to sense of failure on children if they do not perform in academic. They do not have positive values as a support to move on or look at the failure in the positive way. As a result, they would give things up easily and tend to be afraid of challenging tasks.
5. Role Model For Being Confident
Parents are advised to present confidence to their children. A parent who do not have confident would be difficult to show a model to their children and the children might have difficulty to understand the form and elements of self-confidence.
In terms of the characteristics of low self-confidence, according to Ms Li Li, the children would present timidity and withdrawal, easy discouragement, arrogance, self-righteousness, tendency to follow group decisions, antagonism and so on.
“Other than that, a child with low self-confidence would be fear of being isolated from others and they present with herd mentality, poor problem solving skills and dependent on others.” However, a confident child would usually lively, cheerful, independent, decisive, will not give up easily, have self-control, and can establish interpersonal relationships with others.
"A confident children generally present high level of self-consciousness and self-control. They know the purpose and meaning of doing something clearly, and can restrain themselves according to certain requirements." said Ms Li Li.
When interacting with other people, a confident child knows how to take care of other people's feelings and needs. A child who lacks of self-confidence tend to shrink back in this regard and pay more attention to his/her own feelings.
She said that parents could help children to find their own values, discover their own strengths or interests and give them positive affirmation and encouragement, so that the children could enjoy their own values and strengths, and generate self-confidence through intrinsic way.
“For example, if children like to play drums, let them participate in drumming activities so that they have the opportunity to show their strength. " added by Ms Li Li.
"The various skills such as communication, socialization, leadership and so on that children learned in group activities could help them to become a more capable people and self-confidence could be developed in these ways."
In addition, she pointed out that high-sensitivity children are also very easy to become emotional and lose self-confidence due to the high level of information processing and overly ruminate at the same time.
"Highly sensitive children will feel 10 times, or even more on the same things compared with others. Anyway, please do not deny your child’s feelings by saying 'you think too much' or 'you are really sensitive'. You may try to empathize and accept the child’s feelings with words such as “You seemed feeling angry towards…”, “I know you are not happy with this” and so on. " explained by Ms Li Li.
She said that highly sensitive children have unique ideas about their own way of life, stubborn, and they will become defensive and feeling awkward when they are being corrected.
"If you continue to take severe reprimands, highly sensitive children will become more stubborn and panic. Self-confidence is tough to be established under this circumstance."
"At this time, parents could slowly guide them and make adjustment little by little."
According to the clinical psychologist again, although almost all patients with mental or psychiatric diseases present symptoms of low self-confidence, there is no relationship between a person with mental illness and a person who is lacking of self-confidence.
"According to countless researches, children with self-confident are superior in physical and mental health, interpersonal relationships, and professional achievement and vice versa. " Ms Li Li added.
Parents are the original confidence builders. Building children's self-confidence is an ongoing part of parenting. Parental involvement through early childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood communicates acceptance, acknowledgement, and admiration. This contributes significantly to the development of children’s self-confidence.
Source: CCN 精彩大马
