How to Build Self-Confidence in Children: Activities & Exercises

Across all disciplines, self-confidence is a key factor in success and happiness. Confidence allows people to share ideas freely, pursue dreams passionately, and become leaders. For some people, this feeling of self-confidence comes naturally. But for most people, self-confidence needs to be built over time; Therefore, it is a good idea for us to learn how to build self-confidence in children. Read on for helpful general strategies and some simple, specific activities to build your child’s self-confidence.

What Causes Lack of Confidence in Children?

There are a number of factors that can damage a child’s self-confidence. More obvious causes are negative attitudes and/or excessive criticism directed at children, as well as unreasonable expectations of success. According to Tim Elmore, a successful author and speaker in the field of leadership, another lesser-known cause is overprotecting children. When they don’t have the freedom to make their own decisions (and make mistakes as a result), children won’t have the confidence to act independently later in life.

Explore Helpful Ways To Build Self Confidence In Children

Building self-confidence is a gradual process that requires patience from you and your children. Here are some general guidelines for improving children’s self-confidence.

1. Let children make their own choices

Decision making can be a stressful process, which is why children need to practice making small decisions from a young age. When parents make all the decisions for their children, they feel uncertain when it comes to considering various options. Avoid this by giving kids the freedom to build their own decision-making processes, and make some mistakes too!

2. Help them set goals

Often, children have ideas and dreams, but lack the confidence to achieve them. One way to overcome these negative thoughts is to set goals. Goal setting can help reduce large, intimidating endeavors into small, achievable steps that students have a greater chance of achieving. You can help them establish a goal-setting process by suggesting ways to break down their ideas in steps. With each small step a child completes, they will become more confident in their abilities.

3. Encourage and help children to practice

Learning how to improve a skill is an important part of building self-confidence. When something has been practiced well, a child can know they can succeed as a result of their preparation. And, when children find a repeatable process to practice skills, they will also be able to learn faster. This phenomenon is easy to observe in music, as learning a musical instrument can be a great way to build self-confidence.

4. Teach children to be careful

Many students who lack self-confidence are very critical of themselves. One way to calm these negative thoughts is to do mindfulness exercises. This can include activities such as meditation, yoga and breathing exercises. Any activity that frees children from self-consciousness can help them judge themselves less harshly.

5. Provide opportunities to challenge themselves

Children who are not challenged will never realize their full potential. It is through challenges that children learn to push the limits of their abilities, to see how far their abilities can take them. Clearly, imposing challenges on children will have good effects No increases self-confidence and may even worsen it; instead, letting them discover their own challenges can help them develop a can-do attitude.

Activities to Build Self-Confidence in Children

With these general ideas in mind, you can now try some of these activities with your child!

1. Learn a musical instrument

Learning a musical instrument is a great way to build self-confidence because it combines many of the tips above. Students need to practice to get better, and need to set goals for what they want to practice. As students become better at the instrument, they will feel successful and gain confidence in their ability to improve. The best way to help students start learning a musical instrument is to enroll in private lessons and/or join a school music program.

2. Exercise

Sports are another way for students to learn to view themselves positively. Children must not only compete with each other, but also “compete” with themselves to overcome nervousness and push themselves to their limits, thereby strengthening their self-confidence. Additionally, effective coaches help children set achievable goals and guide them toward success. On the other hand, children have to deal with failure and defeat in sports, which can help them learn to view mistakes as learning opportunities.

3. Positive affirmations

When trapped in a negative thought pattern, it will be difficult to break the cycle. One way out is positive affirmations. Positive affirmations are positive statements that someone says to themselves, about themselves. Writing down positive affirmations on paper is helpful because it makes them more concrete and easier to review throughout the day. Doing this for a few weeks can help children realize how capable they are of achieving their goals.

4. Mindfulness practice

There are a number of different approaches to practicing mindfulness, but most focus on awareness of the present moment. This can help children to close their eyes and focus on their breathing, which can induce a calming feeling. Increasing this self-awareness is a great way to calm negative thoughts, and if children do this more often, they will be able to calm their negative thoughts more quickly, which will make them feel more confident.

5. Learn new skills like coding

Kids love to learn, and learning new skills is a great way to build self-confidence. An example of a skill that a child can learn is computer coding. Programming allows kids to bring their ideas to life in the form of animation, games, and more. Seeing their hard work produce tangible results that they can interact with and share will definitely make them feel grateful and confident! There are many online courses to introduce kids to coding. You can even start with Create & Learn’s award-winning free online courses, designed by professionals from Google, Stanford, and MIT and led by expert instructors. Many students start by learning to code using Scratch coding, a fun drag-and-drop programming language.

How to Build Self-Confidence in Children

By keeping the above tips and strategies in mind, you can start helping your child gain self-confidence. Remember, every child is different, so there is no one-size-fits-all approach. You may need to experiment with a number of different approaches before finding one that works for your child. If you’re not sure where to start, you can try building your skills with Create & Learn’s most popular class for beginners: Scratch coding.

Written by Create & Learn instructor Dominic Occhietti. Dominic is a graduate of Michigan State University, where he studied music performance and computer science. He really enjoys teaching, whether it’s coding classes, French horn lessons, or even downhill skiing lessons!