Ideas on how to raise confident children

My adventurous, confident and brave child Danielle holding a python

Context for my last point: Last night I was telling a story to my small group from church about my earlier years as a mother of 2.

Danielle our first child was almost 4 years old and she was ready for school. We registered her in a nursery school and we were so excited for her to begin school.

The morning of the first day of school, we got her little cute bag and snack ready.

You know how it is with first born children. Everything is new and exciting.  We had heard several parents talk about their first child’s day at school and all the emotions involved and we were ready.

I was so excited about every step in her growth and for George and to start experiencing the real adventures as parents. It seemed like a lifetime before she begun school!

At almost 4 years old, there was so much drama for us as young parents learning, adjusting, copying other parents plus all the drama with the birth of her brother Gabriel and living in foreign country. We had random wrinkles on our faces!

We lived in a world of sleepless nights, earning small salaries only to pay for diapers, formula and rent and maybe food; we were always tired.

BUT, having the 2 of them was such a huge reward for this little heart of mine that always wanted to be a mother and as broke my husband and I were, we lived in such a blissful world with our two super hyped kids.

We could not wait for Danielle to start school, so we could experience what other parents’ experience.

So, with her lunch box and cute bag, nice shoes and socks, hard navy blue jeans (it is Danielle, she was going to have a blast, so no dresses). We set off for school.

15 minutes later, we were at school and we opened the door of the car. She saw a colorful environment and she literally flew out of the car and run to school! He little fit barely touched the ground.

SHE FLEW OUT OF THE CAR!

Her reaction to school was far, very far from what my expectations were that morning!

From other people’s stories, I expected my child to be scared, hug me, hold my hand tightly and tell me to walk with her to meet these strangers called teachers and other small people about to be her friends.

Even little prince George (the one from England), held his dads hand first day of school- shouldn’t he be over confident and flying out of the car! I know they had prepared him better because the whole world would be watching his first day of school but my Danielle had very inexperienced parents who did not have a clue how to handle first day at school.

George and I were very shocked at her confidence levels. We had to run after her to say goodbye and to say we would pick her up later. She was not interested in our stories! She was in her colorful world.

Since then Danielle has always shown confidence in all she does and now all 7 of them are confident children. They may be with different genes as adoption took over our story but the level of confidence spreads out evenly.

Several mum's have asked me “how do you get your kids to be confident?” I was first asked this question when Danielle was about 6 years old and it was just the 3 of them. At that point I didn’t even know what I was doing but I started observing our parenting lifestyle.

My kids are not arrogant. They are polite, kind and are slowly learning to be generous. They respect people of all kinds and levels but they have an opinion because we have allowed them to have an opinion as long as they are polite.

Let’s remember that the one attribute that separates confidence and arrogance is humility!

Here are some ideas from my observation: 

1.       Let them speak for themselves. When you are asked, how are your kids, which school they go to and stuff that is related to them let them answer if they are present.  Also don’t let their loud siblings speak for quieter brothers or sisters.

2.       Go out with them to malls, play grounds and fun places on a regular basis. Create proggie for them interact with the world with you as a guide. This is when they are able to observe other people’s behavior, including yours as a parent.

3.       When you got out with them for a meal, ask them to go asked the questions you would ask. Can we have someone come serve us please? Can we have the bill please? Can someone come take our orders? Tell them the exact works to use and they have to be polite. We have always done this, from when the kids were able to speak.

4.       Speak positively about people and be nice to people always. They are always watching and listening. Being nice elevates confidence

5.       Tell them what they are good at as kids as often as you can. When they excel at something, let them know how proud you are of them. When someone knows their strength, their confidence levels are higher because they will learn to apply themselves where they you are most relevant.

6.       Focus them not on having much but being much! Their inner attributes (kindness, love, patience, service to humanity, strength in character, working hard and other godly principles) is being much. What we have comes and goes but who were becomes stronger as practice what we really want to be.

7.       Tell them to be confident in situations when they self-doubt and have fear- Challenge them.

8.       Let them see you being confident in different situations. Deal with issues that need to be dealt with when they are watching.

9.       Don’t let their mistakes define them. Walk through the journey of correction and when they finally make it right and you observe it, let them know how correct they are.

10.   Encourage them to be a team- Support each other, love each other, and serve each other. Family is most important part of who we are as human beings. More important than people that come into our lives and go. This is something that you have to fight for by creating family ideas that encourage teamwork.

11.   Read the bible together as often as possible as family (once a week or once a month). Ask questions during the bible study so; you are able to promote the good in them. Let them ask questions so you are able to guide their minds into godliness.

12.   Let them have an opinion over different things. Listen to their opinion. Correct it if it needs correction; applaud them it is good opinion.

13.   Have as much fun as possible a family; dance, laugh climb trees, make clean jokes over each other. Charity begins at home.

14.   Create traditions that you don’t break out of. We have movie night every Friday evening. We make popcorn, have soda and watch a movie that we all love (if we don’t agree on the movie- we vote and the movie with most votes wins) we travel somewhere nice every Christmas season – if we can afford it. We make our road trips fun with loads of singing.

15.   Let them know that they belong and that they are loved unconditionally at home.

16.   The last point which took me along time to accept as an attribute of confidence in my own life, Let your children know that they are unique. They don’t have to behave like anyone else to matter.

Let them know, they are unique and they will never ever be like somebody else. Don’t allow them to copy others but enjoy their unique attributes.

Even as an adult, this point bullied me a lot. I grew up in an environment where quiet and gentle was a good attribute. I grew up in a world where we are taught that adults are always right. So, I grew up pretending to be quiet and I let people’s opinions guide my life and that became my way of life.

So, about 3 years later after my whole scenario with Danielle flying out the car on the first day of school, I met up with a group of mums and we were all talking about our kids and experiences. All these mums said how they had cuddled their kids on their first day of school and how their kids missed them on their first day of school. It was an emotional separation for them and the separation stayed hard for about 3 weeks. They talked about the tears they had shed with their children. I shared my experience with Danielle and how she still runs as if she was being chased from her mummy every day of school; she was about 7 years now.

I will never forget the reaction of these mums when I shared with them my experience. They said to me, that was not normal and maybe Danielle is not loved enough. One of them called the scenario “sad”! I remember walking away second guessing my mummy abilities! These mummy sentiments damaged me for almost 4 years. I never spoke at mummy meetings but clearly my world was so different from my mummy.  I was so sad that my child was happy to go to school- can you imagine that? I was sad that my child was very confident because she wasn’t crying going to school. I tried to make her feel emotional going away from us but she couldn’t.

 I should have known that being different is okay but I wasn’t ready for the judgment.

We are all unique and we should accept each other with our differences. Let your children know this! If anyone wants to put them down, they will know their differences and that’s okay because mummy and daddy said so! Again charity begins at home.

If you are a grown up and like me, you are not like other people in some situation, don’t worry about. Celebrate your uniqueness. Your purpose in this world is routed in your uniqueness.

Confidence grows! Wherever you are, you can grow the confidence of your children. And if you are not confident as an adult, write me and we can grow together in journey. My confidence levels are still growing too.

Please feel free to add to other ideas on how to raise confident children or help adults gain their confidence!

Send me an email if you need support on your journey (dgmjcommunication@gmail.com)