Instilling Confidence in Your Children
As parents and preschool teachers, the four of us are constantly learning about how to best support our kids at each stage of their lives. Sue’s children are adults now, and she tells the rest of us that you never really stop worrying about your kids at any point–even when they’re old enough to be parents themselves.
For many parents, the world seems to be getting less safe for our children as time passes. And even when you read statistics about how relatively safe our kids are out in the world, there’s no doubt that parents today face a lot of anxiety about things that we understand to be objectively safe. Letting our kids go out and play in the neighborhood, attend school, visit friends, and travel can seem riskier than they actually are.
Where does this extra fear come from, and how can we raise children without letting anxiety rule our parenting? Last Spring, we were fortunate to have Brooks Wilkening, a licensed family therapist, speak to our families about instilling confidence in our children by reducing our own anxiety. This topic is on our own minds as parents and teachers. We know it’s on the minds of many of our families because, let’s be honest here: the last few years have been very, very challenging.
Parenting through a pandemic has been exhausting. We’ve changed how we do even the most basic things. Grocery shopping, sending kids to school, seeing loved ones–we’ve all been forced to do a lot of mental math to determine if and how to do things that we used to do without much thought. With Covid and many events we see in the news, the world can sometimes feel like a scary place to raise children.
So, how can we all parent from a place of confidence instead of fear? And how does play-based preschool fit into that goal? Let’s talk about it! We’ve summarized some of the ideas our licensed psychologist, Brooks Wilkening, presented and some of the ideas from the Big Life Journal, which is a great parenting resource.
Understanding Fear-Based Parenting
Fear-based parenting comes from a place of wanting to protect our kids from pain, disappointment, or failure. While it’s natural to want to protect kids from a world that can sometimes feel scary, taking this too far may prevent kids from developing the skills and confidence to navigate the world during childhood and beyond.
Fear-based parenting conveys to children that they aren’t capable of meeting challenges and that the world is a harsh and scary place. It is about what we say to our children and ourselves.
Fear-based parenting often sounds like:
“Don’t climb that tree–you might fall and break a bone!”
If I let my child quit this activity, they’ll never follow through with anything in life.
If my child doesn’t do well in school now, they’ll be unsuccessful in college and life.
On the flip side, non-anxious parenting conveys calm and confidence. It doesn’t mean that you stop worrying about your kids–it just means that you parent actively instead of reactively.
Parenting to Instill Confidence
Non-anxious parenting means developing confidence in your child’s abilities and letting them know you trust them to do something age-appropriate. This does NOT mean letting your children engage in hazardous behaviors without supervision–it simply means letting them take appropriate risks without telling your child the bad things that could happen or sharing your anxiety.
Non-anxious parenting might sound like:
“I believe you can do hard things!”
“You can always ask for help if you need it.”
“I trust you.”
“I believe you can learn how to do this.”
Parenting from a place of fear and anxiety may make you want to keep your kids inside and not let them explore the world. Instead, find ways to instill confidence while allowing your children to develop new skills. If they’re climbing something and you feel anxious, take some deep breaths and watch them work. If they get anxious, try to talk them through the next steps instead of rescuing them immediately.
How Can Play-Based Preschool Instill Confidence?
Children have many opportunities at school to take risks, try new things, and build their confidence. We sometimes see young children nervously approach the climber at the beginning of the year. They may ask for help climbing to the top. Our response is not to help the child climb up but to instill confidence in their ability to try it themselves. We say things like:
Look at how your friend climbed up–they put their hands up here. Could you try that?
Keep trying and you’ll get a little stronger every day.
Wow, I see you way up there! You must have been practicing hard!
Children often seek opportunities to learn or practice skills they want or need. They may see an older child writing letters and want to do the same. They might be curious about what finger paint feels like–even if they’re a little hesitant to touch it. Our job is to convey that we believe they’re capable of doing something and avoid rescuing them immediately if they become “stuck” or frustrated.
Our ultimate goal is to provide many play opportunities and new experiences each day and let the kids know we trust them to take some risks. We’ve seen many examples of children who feel a little unsure of themselves at first and then develop heaps of confidence over the year. We know they will bring that confidence home and into the world, including elementary school.