Why are middle & upper class children so confident?

[Staroftheseas]

This is really a sweeping generalisation but the majority of middle & upper class children we know are extremely confident. This has nothing to do with private or state education. In our state school the kids usually chosen for awards or solos are also from middle class backgrounds. They just have an inner confidence & polish that lower middle class & working class kids don't have.

It is life experiences and not being fearful of failure that gives confidence. I know so many kids who are always asked by their parents if they want to do this or that activity, and of course their answer is usually no because doing nothing has no risk of failure or risk of doing something new that they might not like. The result is they never try anything, so they have less opportunity to be good at anything. If you never find out what you're good at, how can you be confident.
We're not rich - not by a long stretch, I drive a £750 21yr old car, but we limit time on phones and tablets with our boys to 30 mins /day and and hour at weekends - so we have to fill their time with activities: Beavers, Scouts, Sea Cadets, Piano, Guitar, Glider Lessons (not as expensive as you'd think), brass band, gymnastics/trampolining, tennis, skiing, body boarding, wakeboarding.
We never ask them if they want to try something (if they thought there was a choice, they'd say no and just do Roblox instead because its easier), so we say we're going to do XYZ, and they do it and generally they love it - where possible we join in, but as an older Dad, I can't always keep up. They've learned to be open minded and not fearful of failure - they arent 100% confident, they sometimes fall out with friends - just normal kid stuff - but all these groups represent different social groups - so if things are tricky at school, then at least they've got their mates at Sea Cadets and vice versa.
As parents we have the responsibility to lead our kids towards fulfilling experiences, not load the responsibility of making decisions onto them because we're incapable of proper parenting. Laughing in the face of failure is liberating and can lead to lots of opportunities.

As a teacher upthread said, if there's one single difference it's probably having family conversations over the dinner table, I would think.

Not highbrow, intellectual ones. Just taking an interest in what children have been doing; giving them a regular forum where someone listens to their opinion; occasionally the chance to talk through both sides of a subject, or see it from a different perspective. And certainly the opportunity to talk through what they found difficult, or didn't like, or who they had a minor falling out with today - and what they could approach differently next time.

That sort of 'life coaching' isn't going to happen if the TV is on permanently (don't roast me - I'm not generalising about 'class' here, let's just leave it as the difference between families who do and don't!)

The chance to talk through what didn't go well may be what reduces that 'fear of failure' vibe? Children who don't mind having a tough day, but going back & trying again, will build a confidence over time to try more activities, believe they can do it - even when it goes wrong - and not be afraid to take the risk of it all going tits up. And then the 90% of the time it doesn't, they've further boosted their confidence!

I expect that's a lot of what OP is seeing? And it's largely built around the family dinner table (can be bedtime chats, can be breakfast time). But children who don't have that space to talk over their experiences with adults who can gently encourage & bolster will probably withdrawn into their 'safe zone' far younger than those who do.

It won't neccessarily be "class" , in a lot of cases money, it likely to be far fewer stresses at home, parents confident financially enough to be able to say yes to those school trips, not be so knackered after hard manual work all day to be able to spend quality time with their kids on homework, fun outings etc. Money does smooth a lot of life's pathways and allow for those activities that help instill confidence. I come from a so-called upper class background but have lived in poverty for 20 years, hard working but very low paid, and it is truly debilitating. Have tried to shield my son but he is not stupid. He has the confidence to say no we cannot afford x , y , z! The guilt for me is immense

My niece who goes to private school was made to shake the teacher's hand every morning, look them in the eye and say good morning in a confident voice (primary school) and they are told every morning they are the cream of the crop and the best, this is why some rich kids are super confident!

They learn to mask or present better. I know of three recent male suicides of a relative's friends - all of whom would be described as this.

You think many working class kids play the flute? There's no free music lessons!

I’m from the roughest housing scheme in the country. Parents in low paid jobs (or unemployed/ ill) during my childhood. Had free school meals.

DH was from a completely middle class family: private school, large house in leafy village.

Out of both of us, at school I was the confident high achiever (although he was better at sports)

This, and the post about middle-class flute-playing being indistinguishable from working-class flute-playing are some of the most hilariously tone-deaf things I've come across on here, which is saying something. Let me spell this out, because it is clearly necessary to do so. The vast majority of

Beavers, Scouts, Sea Cadets, Piano, Guitar, Glider Lessons (not as expensive as you'd think), brass band, gymnastics/trampolining, tennis, skiing, body boarding, wakeboarding

are absolutely beyond the reach of many WC families, regardless of the virtue-signalling about driving a 21 year old car.

I come from a poor WC family, and I was actually enrolled at primary school (by teachers, who chose me not because of any musical ability, but because they thought I could best cope with time out of lessons without falling behind) for a 'Deprived Children Music Scheme (I kid you not this was written on the form my parents had to sign) and was allocated the cello. I was lent a half-size cello for the first six months, fair enough. But the scheme, while well-meaning, had no idea what it was asking. A parent had to sit in on lessons, and my mother would have had to bring all my younger siblings with her, and we had no car or money for the bus, so I was lugging a heavy instrument the mile back and forth to school with me for lessons twice a week. And I had literally nowhere to practice we had a kitchen barely big enough for a table and chairs, a living room which was a corridor space between the bedrooms and the kitchen and loo, and the bedrooms were all so small there was barely enough floor space to stand up in. I had to practice when both my sisters were out of our shared bedroom, and I had to so it sitting on the bed with the cello in the two feet between the bunk bed and the single bed.

I persevered, but then we couldn't afford to buy even the cheapest second-hand cello, so gave up then.

TL;DR . It's hard for poor families to give their children what you blithely term 'life experiences'.

That was your story. And I’m sorry for that. But it’s not the same for all working class kids.

I went to guides: it cost 50p a week.
I ran a guide troop a few years ago, and if a kid couldn’t afford to go, the leaders would have paid.

my family are working class and live on a council estate: my niece goes to goodness knows how many dancing and gymnastics classes and competitions.

i know other families in similar situations where the parents have a low paying job, but the kids still have lots of activities

Which is why I specified that the vast majority of the activities @JustAnotherDadOf2 listed were unaffordable. Absolutely Beavers is inexpensive, but I'd be very interested in the glider, bodyboarding and skiing lessons at which the instructors pay for under-privileged kids. His post was ridiculous, and as tone-deaf as the one about social class and flute-playing.

My post was intended as an example of how a well-intentioned scheme in which lessons were free and an instrument was given on loan just didn't work logistically in a poor family with no money for a car or public transport, or physical space in which an instrument could be practiced.

We were/are not particularly unusual in being both WC and poor. That also contributes to differences in academic attainment. We had to do our homework on our beds, and if you had one of the bunk beds you had to do it lying down on your bed. The only table in the house was in the kitchen and there wasn't space to pull out a chair while my mother was making dinner, and the adults were eating and clearing up. And when the adults struggle with literacy, they can't offer much help.

In fact, I'm pretty confident, but I'm confident because I was parenting my younger siblings and working a lot of demanding, responsible PT jobs around my schoolwork. Not because I was having bodyboarding lessons.

Could the problem have been that in your household there were too many children rather than the fact that you were working class?

I'm not sure what your point is. There were too many people living in the house for the size of it, yes, and there was not always enough food for all those people to eat, but these things were a function of being both WC and poor.

Was there something preventing you from accessing the workspaces at the library? Or if parenting younger siblings was the preventative there, in terms of time, then that may also imply the overall issue was also contributed to by too many children.

Between enormous goggles, helmets and factor 50 nobody gets a tan skiing anymore.

Not everyone lives walking distance from a library.

My siblings, friends and acquaintances used to make use of them for a variety of reasons. Some because they shared rooms with siblings, some because it was a work space with few distractions and others because they needed to study between classes. This is regardless of social class.

Btw there are pop stars, actors, etc who come from poor WC backgrounds like the PP. However the difference is what the adults decided was important for their children.

My point is that the lack of opportunities for the kids in your family may be due to the number of kids instead of being working class.

that is not meant to disrespect or criticise your parents: until fairly recently (in the scheme of humanity) very large families were the norm in many communities