Growing Kids With Confidence

A new book offers refreshing guidelines to parents for raising children to be happy, self-assured and not afraid to take risks

SO YOU want your children to be happy and fulfilled as well as successful, productive members of society?

Then allow them to fail. This, according to two experts, is the best training you can give your kids. It allows them to learn from their mistakes and forces them to find a way to fix things themselves and do better next time.

This in turn makes them confident – and confidence is one of the most crucial qualities you can instil in your kids.

In the new book Becoming Brilliant, American educationist Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and psychologist Kathy Hirsh-Pasek delve into what children need to go forth and conquer in today’s fast-paced, ever-changing world.

The answer isn’t to be a helicopter parent – the answer is to let them bumble about a bit and sort things out for themselves.

From babyhood to adulthood there are four stages of learning confidence, each of which is necessary to turn your child into a confident, well-adjusted adult. Take a look.

ALL too often we meet children who aren’t allowed on jungle gyms because they might fall and children who are rewarded for the right answer but not encouraged to try solving the problem another way.

We don’t want our youngsters to touch a hot stove or to walk into the middle of a busy street. Yet Thomas Edison couldn’t have invented electricity without the drive to explore and the confidence to test new ideas.

Confidence has two components. The first is the willingness to try. Without confidence, people can’t accept new challenges and stretch beyond their comfort zones. The second is persistence or grit – having the passion and perseverance, the stamina to hold onto your longterm goals.