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Improve Your Child's Confidence Today!

As a teacher, I have seen many cases where confidence has affected academic results in a negative way. This is unfortunate as students have the ability to perform at a higher standard but often can't due to low confidence and self-esteem. Confidence is a vital factor in academic success for most students. The majority of the students I see are struggling with a lack of confidence; this can sometimes come across to educators and parents as an unwillingness to learn. Don't mistake your child's lack of self-esteem for an unwillingness to learn. I have seen many behavioural issues in the classroom, as well as lack of participation, come from a lack of confidence.

An example I can recall was when I had a grade 4 student that started tutoring who started the session with an attitude of 'I just don't care, and on top of that I'm not interested' (well this is the position that he seemed to have). However after uncovering the child's extensive anxiety of fractions, (due to a previous teacher skimming over fractions and then having the expectation the student should 'have it'). I was able to build that student's confidence with breaking fractions down to the fundamental ideas, once he had those basic ideas he was easily able to grasp equivalent fractions. My point is if you were to take on the viewpoint of this student has a bad attitude towards learning you would never get to the bottom of the problem and be able to resolve it quickly and efficiently.

Here are some tips to help build your child's confidence:

  • Focus on Their Strengths

    Focusing on your child's strengths is a huge factor in building student confidence! Acknowledge those strengths your child demonstrates and make sure you give detailed feedback. For example, if your child is reading aloud to you with fluency as a focus and begins reading with perfect expression tell your child, "Well done with your reading I love the way you added expression to this character it showed that you understand what you are reading" rather than "great job". If you give your child detailed feedback they know you are not only listening, but you are paying attention, this is when the effort factor comes into play.

  • Building Positive View of Self

    Negative self-comments such as "I am just not good at Maths" or "what if I look silly reading" indicate that your child may have a negative view of themselves. Negative self-comments can be improved by encouraging your child to make positive statements when referring to themselves, "I will", "I am" or "I can". This can shift your child's view from "I can't" to "maybe it's possible". Setting an example of this is great to role model to your child what this looks like in your own life.

  • Listen, Acknowledge, Respond

    It is vital that your child feels that their anxieties or worries regarding their confidence are indeed heard and understood. In some cases, you may be the only person listening to your child and be the number one person your child feels comfortable in sharing their worries. If you or your child's teacher has identified issues with confidence in your child, you should first address these issues with your child. There are some cases where low self-esteem can be addressed in a simple communication between your child and yourself. Listen openly to your child about the problems they are experiencing in school, allow them to give you all the information about what is happening; acknowledge that that is the way they feel and that this problem is genuine to them although it may not be to you. Then help support your child to come up with a solution to how they can work through this problem, the key here is to allow your child to come up with a solution to the problem (this is 100x more effective than if you came up with the solution). Support your child in implementing the change!


    If you would like more information regarding addressing confidence, please don't hesitate to call, email or message me :)

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