Self-confidence, often interchangeable with self-esteem, is the feeling of trust in one’s abilities and qualities. It is important to build both self-esteem and self-confidence in your child to ensure complete emotional health. The goal is not for your child to build a long list of accomplishments to feel good about herself. Although prospering in various activities does give us a sense of accomplishment, it should not be our source of joy.
In my childhood years, many of my peers were very good at math, yet I wasn’t. This caused me to have a lack of confidence in my math abilities. My parents weren’t good at math either so I didn’t have the support necessary to infuse confidence in me as it pertained to math. On the other hand, my mother was AWESOME at English so I always had confidence in the subject because I could go to her for reassurance and guidance no matter the assignment.
Here are 5 ways self-confidence is developed.
(1) Use repetition to develop self-confidence. One of the things that I believe helps to build self-confidence is the opportunity to try something several times before making a commitment to the activity. While working on your programming assignment with your child, practice writing the open and closed tags <html> </html> and <head></head> until your child becomes comfortable with doing them on her own.
(2) Have someone walk your child through the process. This is where counselors and parental guidance come into play. When a parent walks a child through a task the first time, the child is more comfortable with tackling the task the next time. This will help a child to believe in herself and her abilities according to Jack Canfield’s Maximizing Your Potential. Now that you have shown your child how to write the open and closed tags, give her the opportunity to practice on her own.
(3) Identify your child’s strengths. Once you identify your child’s strengths, build on those strengths so that your child doesn’t feel overwhelmed with any task.
(4) Stay Positive. If your child becomes frustrated with this “new language” stay positive. Positivity encourages confidence, removing “I can’t” from your child’s vocabulary. Reassure your child that she is learning a new language and learning a new language can be challenging, but not impossible.
(5) Reward your child when he or she successfully completes a task or activity to build your child’s self-confidence. This can be done with stickers, ice cream, some TV time or some other reward that the child will enjoy. When your child finishes writing a set of open and closed tags, give them a reward.
#CODEplayground Activity
By the end of this three part series, we will have created a web page that says, “Hello World My Name is [child’s name]”. Your young one will develop this page utilizing our fun and colorful books. There are three different books that are relevant to each blog post in our three part series. Each book will focus on the three different parts of a HTML page. The document declaration <html>, the head section <head> and the body <body>.
So today’s #CODEplayground – Mommy, Me & Programming activity is to learn about the parts of an HTML document. You can download the book here.
Have fun programming with your child and building their self-confidence. Don’t forget to give repetition, walk your child through the process and reward her to build her self-confidence.