BOOST YOUR CHILD'S CONFIDENCE (Overcome Timidity & Insecurity)

0:00 this is high Fam I'm aitel do you ever wonder how we can raise confident children children who are able to go out into the world children who aren't worried about how they're perceived who aren't obsessing over their self-image who aren't feeling deeply insecure well today I have five ways that we can help children Twins and teens establish confidence a sense of self a sense of security and the ability to go out into the world and take risks and face their

0:30 failures all right so how do we build confidence in children and why would we want to well life is easier when you have a sense of confidence when you believe in yourself when you have Security in who you are and in your capabilities and when you're willing to take some risks and face failures and really grow in the process and not feel crushed by every single setback failure or mistake so building confidence is a low slow gradual burn of a process it

0:59 doesn't happen all at once it's all about the type of environment and the mindset that we offer our children at home and primarily that's going to start with modeling do you have confidence in yourself and in your decisions are you constantly second guessing yourself doubting double taking are you constantly engaging in harmful and mean selft talk about yourself saying things like oh I'm so dumb I'm so stupid I'm too fat I'm too this I'm too that if

1:27 you're saying things about yourself that aren't nice that aren't supportive that aren't helpful that aren't encouraging that's a Surefire sign that you lack a sense of confidence in your own self that you're not engaging in a growth mindset and that you yourself are feeling shy timid insecure nervous and anxious about your life so that would be a great place to start and all of the tips I'm about to give you here for your children could of course be useful for

1:54 you if you're feeling that deep sense of kind of a jittery insecurity I promise you this is something that can be overcome I myself felt very insecure in the past and totally lacked confidence but it's something that we can heal that we can grow in that we can mature in because in many ways having a kind of calm humble sense of confidence is a sign of maturity it's a sign that we're not busy Naval gazing we're not obsessed

2:17 with ourself and our image we're not so worried about what other people think and we're not taking back when there's a mistake that we've made or a failure we simply learn from it and move on so let's start with Point number one and that is about encouraging and praising effort more than outcomes and this is a page taken directly from the book of Carol DW and her work on growth mindset an excellent book that I highly

2:43 recommend so one of the things that she talks about is how when we encourage outcomes when we praise the outcomes that children have like wow you did that puzzle so well wow you got 100 on the math test wow you were the lead singer in the show what would doing is we're saying that whatever you get in the end whatever you actually manage that's what matters and that actually discourages children from stretching themselves from working hard from taking on risks from

3:13 trying something that's a little bit out of their comfort zone because they're worried that they might not get the outcome they might not succeed look at it this way there's incredible research that shows that when you give kids a puzzle to do and then you praise them for completing the puzzle perfectly they are actually less not more likely to take on another puzzle they're worried if you tell them you're so smart you did the puzzle now they're going to think if

3:40 I don't manage with another puzzle then I'm not smart anymore then I'm dumb so I better not try and do another puzzle however if you tell kids wow you really concentrated and worked hard at that puzzle and then you offer them another puzzle they are more likely to take you up on that offer and they're even more likely to try a harder puzzle they're not worried that they'll be perceived as dumb if they don't succeed at the puzzle

4:05 because they know that what you value is the effort they're putting in is the fact that they're concentrating and trying hard and staying the course and they're putting in that effort so it doesn't matter if they succeed or not they're going to try their hardest if you want to build a confident child stop telling them they're so great at everything stop telling them they're smart and they're talented and they're the best stop giving them all these

4:27 labels that they then feel like they have to live up to because they're going to be worried about losing those labels they're going to be worried about what happens if I'm not what happens if I don't succeed what happens if I fail if instead you praise their effort you say you tried you gave it your best shot you know you really worked hard you really came back and did it again and again and again then they're likely to keep going

4:48 because their confidence is built on the fact that they're putting in effort not on achieving that end goal say you want your child to be more confident in sports and you want them to try to you know expand their basketball skills well if you go wild every time they make a basket but the rest of the time you are silent they're getting the message that they're only as good as the baskets they make If instead you're like yes you're

5:11 really persevering with this wow you have so much grit wow you have so much stamina you keep going you're very strong you're going to try again and again and again that's what impresses me then they're going to learn that it's all about putting in the time putting in the effort trying their hardest and the results may or may not come and ain't that just the truth about life so here focus on perseverance on process and on

5:35 progress rather than on end results and watch your child as they strive for Success number two is constructive feedback many times as parents we feel frustrated ashamed embarrassed upset angry when our children fail at something or we feel really worried and guilty about how crushed they must feel but children do need to learn that it's okay to receive and to give constructive feedback to kind of dissect what went wrong what went right why did I fail why

6:06 did I succeed what was helpful what was not here we need to really unlink this like detach this from an emotional charge and teach children to depersonalize constructive feedback my children were once in a program where part of the program was offering feedback to their peers and receiving feedback from their peers on a monthly basis and it was so cool to watch how they got really good at giving and receiving constructive feedback they learned that it wasn't just about saying

6:34 you're good or bad at something but actually saying how you were good and how you were not so good at something and saying what you could do differently what we think you might need more of in order to improve think about this through a coaching mindset someone who really wants your best interest at heart wants you to succeed and is here to really meet the same incentives as and goals as you they have the same agenda

6:56 but they're going to help you by fine-tuning and tweaking and holding you accountable to your highest standard my children learned to do this so quickly I was amazed because they are able to give and receive constructive criticism better than most 40 and 50y olds I know they do it in a respectful way in a way that is focused on the actual issue at hand that is honest that is simple and straightforward and that is completely depersonalized and when they receive

7:22 that type of constructive criticism they were really curious I was amazed to see this in the program as they gave it to each other and the kids were just kind of saying like oh that's interesting I'll think about that I'll take that on board and they kind of received the feedback and thought okay now I have to run it through my own filter and think does this apply to me do I agree is this useful do I want to make a change in

7:42 this regard cool if so okay that is an incredible life skill to give your kids and it's sure to build their confidence when they learn that it's okay to actually you know look back in hindsight and think okay what went well what didn't now you can give your kids constructive feedback about the the way they handle a sibling conflict about how hard they are studying for something about how they're tying their shoelaces about anything they're doing you can say

8:08 hey I'd love to help you with that let me tell you what I think you might want to improve on and then you just say it and you say it in a very calm very straightforward way it's not personal and you don't play the games of offended and offensive and all of that you just say well you know we're working towards this goal let's figure out how we can do it in a better way what can I you know

8:28 reflect back from you as an outsider perspective that's seeing this in order to help you to improve your skills if you feel like your child is insecure and you want to build their confidence don't hold back on the constructive feedback on the criticism as long as it's helpful to them in growing and developing if you hold back you're actually going to create a very fragile sense of self where they feel like they can't hear anything negative about themselves like

8:52 they can't receive any kind of criticism or they'll be crushed and crumbled we don't want to raise Fragile Kids we want to raise kids who can hear it who can take it who can give it all in a respectful and useful way right this is utilitarian this is to help them to grow and learn none of us get better at anything without sometimes receiving some corrective and constructive criticism now remember that criticism always comes with our support and from

9:17 the intention of helping Point number three is to set achievable goals and we want to always have some kind of stretch goal for our child to be working towards what are they learning what what are they trying to develop what skill are they trying to master a child who or a human who is not trying to grow and develop in a certain area trying to master skill can feel really stagnant and start to lose confidence like

9:41 they're not stretching themselves they're not gaining any knowledge wisdom skills muscles whatever and our children have so many skills that they need to learn throughout their childhood to serve them in their life so whether it's riding a bike learning to swim learning to read and write learning to chop a salad learning to make their own bed these are the types of skills that we want our children to have and that there's always going to be some kind of

10:04 goal to work towards so babies set their own goals they learn to crawl and walk and talk but by the time your child is about 3 it's time to start teaching them things yourself you can follow their interest and their Pace somewhat but it's time to start breaking out things that they can start to do can they learn to pour something like pouring the milk in the cereal can they learn to put their backpack on or get dressed by

10:28 themselves can they learn to take themselves to the toilet and you know complete the process independently and then later on can they learn to ride roller skates can they learn to write cursive uh can they learn to call someone up on the phone and invite them for a playd date can they learn to write a thank you card any skill that your child is working towards whether it's an academic School skill or a life skill that you're teaching them at home is an

10:53 opportunity for them to build an awareness of themselves as someone who can achieve and can can overcome and is confident in their skills the cool thing about learning and developing is that it embeds itself as a process in our mind and we build a mental model of what it means to go from complete clueless beginner to master right you've been through this process many times in your life from the first time you try something where you know it's awkward

11:21 and you make a ton of mistakes and you look silly doing it and maybe you're making expensive mistakes or costly you know to your time and to your energy and it's not skillful it's not easeful it's not natural and the more times you do it and the greater your you know mentorship and guidance and process the quicker you get to a level of Mastery where it's easeful where it's elegant uh where it looks effortless that's something that

11:46 we want our children to experience over and over and over again as we set these achievable goals for them say learning to ride a bike as you go through that process you experience in an embodied way what it means to go go from I'm going to fall off this thing and hurt myself all the way to I'm cruising it feels so amazing I feel like I'm flying that process is a process that teaches our children that they can many of us

12:11 think that confidence is built on just people telling you You're great and amazing but no confidence is built from the inside out it's built through experiences it's built on a process of earning you earn your confidence by putting in the Miles by putting in the leg work by actually showing yourself in real life with real evidence in front of your eyes that you can do things that once you couldn't ride a bike and now you can once you couldn't read and now

12:39 you can once you weren't independent in this way and now you are those are the types of things that actually teach a child to have confidence in themselves in the most real profound and long- Lasting ways so none of your words ever going to build that type of confidence it's actually building those gradual experiences where they gradually see themselves as oh yeah each time I take on something new I have to struggle through a threshold of resistance it's

13:03 not fun in the beginning it's hard it's annoying but then I keep going and then I keep going and then I master it and then I can do it and that's the kind of person I am I'm confident in myself because I see that I can learn that's the type of kind of subconscious process that we want to establish in their brains now if a task seems too big like maybe riding a bike is too much at once

13:23 we break that down into gradual exposure right so they start by riding a balanced bike and then slowly slowly go you know faster and then we take them onto a regular bike with training wheels without training wheels with parental support without parental support for short rides for longer rides and eventually they're riding for miles a day no problem right we break each one down and with each one we show them we reflect back to them how successful

13:49 they're being like wow in the beginning you couldn't do this and now you're going much faster and much more confidence and falling much less Isn't that cool so we want to kind of boost that confidence by reflecting back to them that they're actually mastering this thing Peace by peace number four is to encourage Independence wherever possible and what I mean here is particularly encourage taking responsibility ownership authorship and agency over their own lives in a gradual

14:13 way throughout childhood babies are born completely dependent on us but by the time they're 18 we expect them to be completely independent in most ways and so what we want to do is to constantly like day by day be transferring little areas of responsibility further and further and further onto our children one of the most overlooked ways that we can do this and actually build incredible confidence in our children is through household chores I mean contributing to a household and feeling

14:39 like you are needed like you are useful like you are helpful like you can do some of the things that adults need that is something that's going to build a lot of confidence for children their ability to actually do things that other people find really gratifying and helpful and rather than us constantly doing for children what they can do for themselves what of my favorite Dr Phil quotes is never do for a child something that they

15:01 can do for themselves so I wouldn't say never sometimes a child's sick or tired or whatever it's fine but for the most part you want to try and constantly reflect back to them hey is this something you can do like even a four-year-old can go and fetch their own water right a 5-year-old could be making their own bed they could be helping with cutting vegetables they could be setting the table they could be sweeping they could be vacuuming there are many

15:24 different things that children can be doing from the ages of 3 four five certainly by the time they are six or seven they're going to be able to do a ton of different household chores and again here you can break them into smaller compartments maybe they can't do the entire laundry cycle but they can certainly set fetch the laundry from the hamper and put it into the machine they could sort it from light and dark they

15:45 could put the Pod into the machine or pour the liquid in they could be getting it out of the machine into the basket they could be taking it to the dryer they could be taking it from the dryer they could be taking the folded piles to each room eventually they can also fold the piles these are the types of of steps that children can actually take and when you expect them to be more independent and to do more things around

16:04 the house then they certainly rise to that occasion and they feel the confidence of being a capable person watching my 12-year-old start his day by going out and doing his pull-ups and then making an egg for him and for his siblings is something that shows me that he feels tremendous confidence and ownership over his morning routine and that is something that I want for my children and for your children too is the sense of I know what I'm doing I

16:27 know how to take care of myself I know how to cook a basic meal I know what to do in case of an emergency I have skills that help me to take care of my environment and my room for example these are the types of things that we want to transfer responsibility too often today children are being uh infantilized later in life and being treated like they can't like they're little but they're not they're in training they're apprentices they're not

16:52 yet fully you know adults At All by any measure but there are many areas in which they can start to get more confidence through Independence through expecting more of them through giving them more responsibilities and as you do that they are going to start to see the consequences right they're going to see that as I take on more responsibility I get more privileges right because responsibility and privilege are always or should always be intertwined right the more responsible I

17:19 am in using knives and fire the more privileges I get in the kitchen to actually cook for example so building up that muscle of I have a lot of skills I can be incredibly responsible I can actually take ownership over the consequences of my actions those are the types of things that actually build confidence now one area you can start to gain independence and Confidence from the earliest of Ages is play you know I teached parents how to encourage

17:46 independent play and I warmly invite you over to my course reclaim play in order to learn exactly how to encourage this type of deep imaginative problemsolving self-reliant that we can foster in children as early as zero yeah babies can start to develop this kind of their inner World their imagination their self-awareness through independent play so even if you have a small baby at home this course is for you and this is where you're going to really learn how to

18:15 Foster that independence from the earliest of Ages and then that Independent Drive that you develop through play through the most fun and natural thing that children do will then start to actually expand out and spread into other areas of their life where they're suddenly going to be more independent in household Management in hygiene in their academics Etc because theyve built that muscle from an early age and finally number five is telling stories of overcoming telling stories of

18:44 resilience of facing challenges of learning from failures telling stories that are built on growth mindset and of course you could tell other people's stories and you should and you could read books and you could watch movies but I actually want you to tell your children stories about yourself and about your children that show that they can overcome so one of my children was very afraid of dogs for no apparent reason she had never had a traumatic

19:10 experience about dogs she had never been exposed to a mean dog or whatever but for some reason she got it in her head that dogs are scary and I think the natural response to that is to help her to avoid dogs right to be like okay she's afraid of dogs so can you put your dog away can you hold the dog can you leash the dog Etc because my child's afraid now my Approach is actually the

19:31 opposite because I want her to build up a library of self stories of overcoming right I want her to have a whole Vault a whole like you know a whole library of stories where she can say about herself you know in the beginning I couldn't do this but by the end I could in the beginning I was afraid but then I mastered it so what I actually did was I told a friend of ours who has a lovely

19:52 sweet well-mannered well-trained dog that if they ever go away on vacation could we we please dogit for them and sure enough uh a couple of opportunities have come around and we took their dog in for a week and I prepared her and I told her we're going to be having the dog and is she willing and she was a bit iffy but willing and that's important because children need to take on the challenges voluntarily in order for it

20:15 to really be that kind of psychologically strengthening process um but she did volunteer she said okay we can do this and she had her moments where she didn't want to and she was kind of afraid but she decided okay we're going to do that through my coaching right I explained to her look here's what's going to happen in the beginning you're going to feel afraid and you're going to wish I didn't bring the dog and you're going to want me to

20:35 take the dog away because our brains want to avoid fears right we want to move away from things that trigger our fight or flight response that's our flight response running away and you're going to feel angry and upset and you won't want a scary thing in your house but then you will acclimate you will get used to it the triggered response will calm down your body will calm down your heart will pump less fast you'll be less

20:58 flushed and your body will start to see that you are actually safe with the dog here you don't need to feel insecure or afraid and as time goes on you'll get used to it to the point where maybe you'll even like the dog and you'll take care of the dog well let me tell you that today just this morning my daughter took the dog out for a walk by herself she loves the dog she's so excited and

21:20 all she can say about herself is I'm not afraid of dogs anymore I don't even know why I was afraid of dogs now this type of voluntary exposure to the things that we're afraid of is exactly what builds the muscle of confidence and I could give you a hundred stories like this of things that I've done with my children to help them to overcome their insecurities one of my children was very afraid of getting up in front of a crowd

21:40 right all of us are afraid of that that's a scary thing for most people just like all of us have a certain fear and you know weariness around animals to begin with these are natural fears but the point with fear is that we must face it what do we do with fear say it again we face it right and I want you to tell your children that what do we do when we're afraid we Face our fears that's

22:01 what we do with fears so we voluntarily face them and with my child who was scared to get up in front of a crowd we found some opportunities where he could get up in front of a very small very intimate very loving very supportive crowd and just say a few words and he built that muscle and he's really not afraid of it anymore because he's had several opportunities to gradually expose himself and to overcome so this

22:23 is what I mean when I say build stories of overcoming give your children plenty of opport unities to face their fears in a gradual supported and voluntary way those are the key things gradual supported and voluntary you have to actually get their Buy in they have to be convinced but you can also kind of orchestrate opportunities for them to have this like orchestrate an opportunity to speak in front of a small crowd maybe it's Grandma's birthday and

22:50 they're going to get up and just say Happy Birthday Grandma we all love you okay that was their first you know speaking in front of a crowd it was very low Stakes it was a very friendly warm audience it was a supportive environment and that's how they start to say oh you know what that wasn't so bad and we say back to them you know you were really nervous to do that but then you did because you're an overcomer and you do

23:10 it you face your fears and I'm so proud of you you must feel so proud of yourself right that's how we encourage that effort and that ability to overcome so tell them stories you remember the time when you were so afraid of the water but then you dipped your toe and then the next day you got a little bit in and now you're like a fish we can't even get you out of the cool right we

23:29 tell them how that is the normal process that is the human process and we help them to see that building confidence is something that we do with our legs we actually go out and do the things that we're afraid of and then we feel more confident in ourselves so no amount of praising no amount of you know slapping amazing like you're amazing you're so smart you're so beautiful none of that is going to build your child's

23:52 confidence what's going to build your child's confidence is when they actually experience that gradual growth process of gaining Mastery over something that once they had none or maybe they even had fears about if this video was helpful for you I would love to hear what your key takeaway was below leave me your comments and leave me your requests for future videos thank you so much for being here don't forget to hit the like button and make sure to share

24:21 this with any friends who you think might benefit from it until next time keep on living that high fam life