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Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

How to help a child lacking in confidence (age 4)

1 reply

latrucha · 11/04/2012 21:03

My DD is 4 and 4 months. She is very lively, friendy, sociable. She loves prechool and we've never had a single problem with that.

Since she was a baby she has been very lacking in confidence. She needed to be absolutely sure she could do something before she would do it (walking, talking etc). The speed of her development was on the older side of average, so no actual problems. She's just very cautious.

I think it's partly because she's four and four year olds are like that, but lately it can get very wearing listening to her, 'I can't/I don't want to/ I don't know how to' etc It is really holding her back. Today I took her to the swimming pool for the first time in a ling time. DH usually takes her. I realised that her swimming is just the same as it was at two and a half. While DS (21 months) was getting into everything, in his usual gung ho spirit she was clinging and refusing to try and all the rest of it.

Now, I know giving her a hard time over it won't help (although I'm afraid I did a bit) but what will help?

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Ruthchan · 11/04/2012 21:08

This is all down to personality. Every child is different, some jump in and some are more cautious.
Make her feel safe and support her. That will help her more than anything else to try new things.
She will probably become more willing to take chances as she gets older.

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