Building up a child’s self-confidence requires a deep understanding of behaviour and action. Here are 17 tips to help you reinforce and boost a child’s self-confidence.
- Build self confidence in a child by making unpressurized time to talk with them. Many of us talk to or talk at a child. We give instructions like ‘Clean your teeth’ or ‘Pick your toys up’. This type of communication is very different from talking with. To talk with implies you are actively making room or time to listen to their side of the conversation.
- Another simple way to build self esteem is to ask open-ended questions. These require more of a response than a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Try asking ‘why’ or ‘how’ to elicit extended answers.
- Get down to their level. If they’re sitting on the floor playing, get down with them. This reduces the gulf between big and powerful, small and insignificant.
- Avoid doing the talking for a child. Sometimes as adults it’s easy to assume spokesperson status habitually. The child learns that you’ll do all the talking for them and they don’t have to try. They also learn you’ll do it better than they can anyway. In doing the talking you rob them of practice time. Give it back to them. Even though you may have to wait for them to find the right words at times, know you’re helping!
- Avoid reinforcing baby language by repeating it frequently. This can be hard as sometimes a child’s vocabulary mistakes are delightful and we don’t want to let them go. But we must if we want them to grow. We can write down and cherish the errors but keeping them live for too long is unkind.
- Avoid teaching a baby language. Why complicate learning to speak with giving a child a sub-language to learn which later must be un-learnt? Support their growth by teaching the right words from the start. By this I don’t mean pedantically correct language but definitely giving them a vocabulary appropriate for their age.
- Build self confidence in a child through making a point of praising their speech and correcting mis-pronounced words non-judgmentally. ‘Good on you for trying xxx (said correctly) word. It can be tricky. Let’s say it slowly together.’
- Play lots of language games. (These are great for car journeys.) Examples: Alphabet ‘I spy’: I spy with my little eye something beginning with a, b, c, d etc., Rhyming word-chains: words starting with or ending in the same sounds. Example: cat, mat, fat, flat, sat…Or flat, floor, flood, flew, flop…
- Read stories aloud daily. When they’re very small start with stories built around repeating phrases and rhymes. If you read the same story frequently enough, your child will begin ‘reading’ it along with you. Miss bits and they’ll correct you. Talk with them as you go about the pictures. Get them to tell you about what’s happening in them.
- Singing songs. Get your child singing along. If it’s a favorite you can take alternate verses or take turns making up songs about whatever is going on around right now. Pick a well known tune (‘Old Macdonald Had a Farm’ is good.) and have fun. I remember our son enjoying variations like, ‘Our Big Boy James is putting on his boots, e, i, e, i, o. He puts his right foot in and wriggles it around, e, i, e, i, o’ …etc.
- Read poetry aloud. Children love the sounds of poetry and will readily imitate them. Try nonsense poems, fantastical poems, or ones with a strong beat full of words sounding their meaning. Your local library will have anthologies in the Children’s Section. Ask for help if you can’t find them.
- Encourage ‘talking time’ at the dinner table. Make sure each child has a turn, is listened to, and not interrupted. If need be put a time limit in place for the one who goes on and on! When they’re finished, paraphrase what you heard and respond.
- If your child has difficulty speaking clearly and you’re worried it could be a physical problem, get it assessed sooner rather than later. The problem may lie in their hearing or the formation of the physical organs and body parts needed for speech. Specialized therapists will do a superb job of advising the right way to address the matter. If you allow a speech fault to establish, they become harder to stop.
- Going to a local play-group or kindergarten will definitely help build self confidence. They’ll learn in a protected safe environment to interact with people outside of their family circle.
- Take your child when you go visiting or shopping. It doesn’t have to be all the time but enough for them to learn to feel comfortable in new situations with new people.
- Teach your child simple good manners and expect them to use them as a normal part of daily living. Making their own requests politely and thanking people for things or services received will build esteem and is a valuable first step toward solo public speaking.
- Model good listening and speech. A child learns from those closest to them. If you don’t listen or speak well, it becomes more difficult for the child to develop the confidence to do so.