If you have confident children - how did you do it?

I think the best combination is secure attachment to both parents but not protected from consequences in the outside world. So loving but firm parenting with clear boundaries, along with encouragement to take risks while recognising that they might fail and that's okay. Parental tolerance of negative emotions will go along way to enabling their kids to be able to tolerate them within themselves.

Anxiety, for instance, is normal in certain circumstances, a lack of it in any circumstances is pathological. Teaching your kids that it's normal and okay to feel anxious in new or challenging circumstances, but that it shouldn't dictate your choices ie. you don't duck out of a challenge because you're nervous, you feel the fear and do it anyway.

I think resilience is the most under-rated virtue and on a society-wide levels we're all suffering from the tidal wave of young adults who can't cope with even hearing something they don't like.

Nurture, reassurance and playing competitive sport as the grew up. It's teaches them resilience and to learn to problem solve for themselves. Once they realise that they can do this their confidence comes on in leaps and bounds.

I think if you can try to provide an impartial sounding board while they are processing their emotions they can learn more from the experiexperience than being left entirely to navigate it alone. Don't solve problems for them, don't hide problems from them when you are facing them and see what they actually need from you.

DS1 (16) will come to me when he wants to vent or just work through, he asks for opinions and advice and takes this on board. He is very flexible and open to changing his opinion and admitting that he was wrong and will laugh at himself.

DS2 (14) is much more self-contained and prefers to do his thinking alone. He is much more sensitive to criticism and gets very fixed on an idea.

DS3 (8) is ND and will often try to use me to externalise his feelings. However, he will discuss things and reflect after the fact which is when we do a what could we have done differently chat and explore the emotion that has been too much in the moment.

So, regardless of you deciding that your parenting style will be X, I think you will need to trust yourself to be guided by your child(ren) to a certain as extent. I haven't approached each of my boys differently, they have responded differently and I've adapted to that in order to meet their individual needs. Hopefully, they will all turn out OK.

As a person I became less shy once I became happier being myself so I'm trying to foster a good sense of self esteem in my three year old son.

Seems to be working so far! He's not afraid to talk to people or join in with activities. A far cry from the clingy and shy child I was!

The only things that makes him apprehensive are people in costume 😅

OP you say you hardly recognise yourself since having kids and finding it hard with anxiety. As you said you panicked first and he then picked up on this. Then you tried to act like everything was OK so we’re sending out mixed messages which must have been very confusing for him.

Have you spoken to anyone about this?

Your world and body changes so much with pregnancy and a new baby it is easy to overlook your own needs, some of the anxiety could be unresolved PND.

You can speak to your dr or some areas have self referral to counselling. It can be really helpful.

I have three boys. 15 yo twins and a 12 yo.

I wouldn't say I've done anything differently with them, but my 12 yo is the most confident child I think I've ever met - my older boys are not. None of them were particularly clingy during toddler-hood. For mine I'm pretty sure it stems from academic achievement - my older two are dyslexic and struggle a lot more than their brother. It's also just personality though - twin 1 is a lot quieter and less confident than twin 2.

You need to teach them social skills. Most valuable lesson ever. My mother instilled these in us was utter cringe at the time but gets you far in life. Far more important than violin lessons and further maths. You need to
model this too. Save yourself thousands in private school fees 😀

They are what they are. One of my twins is incredibly confident and outgoing. The other is very shy and anxious. They have had the same upbringing, same class at school and same experiences. This didn’t develop over time, it was clear from age 18m up, if not before.

@decionsdecisions62 that's true. Resilience comes from experience and dealing with situations.

I would say I'm quite Resilient due to dealing with some serious things since young. I would also say I'm confident because I had to trust myself to deal with these situations.

Completely agree with you

Very true

My kids are confident teens, and we have been purposeful about building resilience by giving them regular opportunities to step out of their comfort zone and rewarding their efforts. If they wanted stuff from the gift shop on a day out, they needed to go in the queue and pay for it themselves or not have it, a simple calm choice. They ordered their own food at restaurants from a young age and we also equipped them with life skills such as swimming, making a sandwich, putting on their bedding etc which made them feel capable.

That said, we are a confident, extraverted couple, both DP and I are big personalities who enjoy connecting with people so I don't know how much is nature and how much is nurture tbh. I do think though that anxiety breeds anxiety and, based on my own observations only, the people I know who are 'helicopter' parents who do everything for their kids in my social.group, seem.to have the least confident teens.

I think the most important thing is making sure he's secure. He's too young to be forced to do things he's not comfortable with but give him lots of praise for things he's good at.
I don't think it's as simple as deciding to raise a confident child, all children are different and have different personalities. I was a shy child and still quite shy but i am very resilient and confident in situations I feel comfortable in.
My children are similar I think. At the moment we're working on ordering for themselves in restaurants!

Being in crèche and wraparound care where they had to speak to other adults helped. Also allowing them to talk, listening when we have family dinners etc

And I agree from the poster whi said working. It's important to work. That builds a whole other level.of resilience.

My older 3 children are confident outgoing and are able to adapt themselves to the situation they are in..I truly belive this has come from playing team sports outside of school. They have a group of friends they have to make the effort to maintain contact with. The youngest is not interested at all. She is confident in a completely different way. She is wilfully and stubborn. Whereas the older 3 are what I describe as "casually confident" like they take everything in their stride and maintain a curiosity to their surroundings.

I also make sure to explain the correct definition of something. Even this week one was listening to a central C song and they referred to "Traps being open on Xmas day" and asked what this was. I explained it to them. I am aware that they all have Internet access and may be told the wrong thing on line.

Me and DH have also worked hard to make a life in the UK and be confident adults. Even when we don't feel it. Imposter syndrome.

My brother was a very shy child (he's fine as an adult) but I was always very confident. We had very similar upbringings. I think a lot of it comes down to nature, not nurture.

Open communication, leading by example, not pandering to every little grumble and upset, teach a bit of reliance, don't have such rigid routines so that change isn't alien

3 is too young to determine whether they will have a confident personality or not. There are probably extremely shy children who might not change much but I wouldn’t worry too much.

I think it’s a personality trait to some extent and just involving them in everyday tasks will help build confidence of it doesn’t come naturally.

Don’t overthink it. Dd is 11 now. She was quite a clingy, reserved, risk averse toddler. She’s very confident, outgoing and social. I think it’s partly down to personality (she just IS outgoing and sociable which comes across as confidence) and partly down to making her feel secure when she needed it. I didn’t push her to ‘be brave’ or tell her to ‘stop crying’. I let her feel her emotions and was there for her.

As they get older, it’s also about being open and talking to them to help them navigate difficult situations. I’m a very open person. I don’t bury my head in the sand or leave difficult conversations unsaid. When she’s had tough stuff come up with friends (she has a couple friends with difficult home lives and we’ve had to make a safeguarding report, for example), we talked about it, I encouraged her to speak up to her teachers, I modelled that by also speaking to the teachers, praising her for supporting her friend and speaking up. But I don’t think it’s like something you can plan at 3. You just model that and support them through it as situations arise where they build those skills.