Your Child Will Have Fun Doing These Top 10 Confidence-Building Activities

How do you think some celebrated personalities like Thomas Alva Edison, Helen Keller, Albert Einstein, and Abraham Lincoln attained success in their chosen paths, despite the challenges they faced? The answer is 'self-confidence'. This positive emotion, along with healthy self-esteem, sets apart these successful individuals from others.

As parents, we must ensure our children grow up with self-confidence and positive self-esteem. One of the key ways to do this is through confidence-building exercises. Before we take a look at some fun and interesting games as a part of confidence-building measures, let us see what we mean by self-confidence.

What is self-confidence?

The APA (American Psychological Association) Dictionary of Psychology defines it thus: 'trust in one's abilities, capacities, and judgment'; it is the 'belief that one is capable of successfully meeting the demands of a task'.

Why is self-confidence important?

A high level of self-confidence will -

• make your child feel good about himself
• motivate him to strive towards success
• improve his social skills
• help him realize his true potential
• enable him to make wise decisions

Building confidence

As a parent, it is important that you help boost your child's confidence and build positive self-esteem in her. Here are some ways to do it -

• empathize with her feelings
• help her believe in herself
• praise her efforts
• help her accept failure and learn from it
• encourage her to do her best and that no one is perfect
• engage her in confidence-building activities

Confidence-building activities

Engage your child in the following confidence-building activities and watch her unravel her potential.

1. Write 'goodness' slips: This game helps family members appreciate each other's qualities and characteristics. Sit around in a circle. Pass around slips of paper and a pen to each family member. Each person must write down one good quality or strength about each of the other members on separate slips. Play some music and each time the music stops, one person takes a turn to read the quality written on one of their slips. The others must guess the person who possesses that quality. You'll be surprised to see even your diffident child smiling when something good is read about her. Everyone feels good!

2. Take time to reflect: Set aside some quiet time towards the end of the day. Get your children to spend some time reflecting on the things they did or experienced - that made them feel good during the day.  After the quiet time, ask them to read aloud what they have noted down. Even a child who has low self-esteem will begin to realize that his abilities are appreciated by others.

3. Present a bio: This can be a fun party game for children. During weekends, let your child and his cousins or friends engage in this interesting activity. Let each person make a presentation on the theme - 'My bio'. Ask them to prepare a mini-narrative about themselves - their interests, hobbies, achievements, and so on. The presentation can be in the form of a speech, poster, Ppt, album, etc. They can begin their sentences with phrases such as, 'I am good at...', 'I am proud of myself because...', or 'I am happy that I can...'. Such presentations will be a self-revelation for children about their true potential. The children can bring in a self-advertisement/commercial angle to the presentations.

4. Make a daily log: Get the children to write on a poster at least one accomplishment or one good deed every day.  If a child struggles to come up with something, help her talk about the day. She is sure to find her good deed or accomplishment. Sometimes, a simple deed of letting someone in a hurry pass by him on a crowded staircase may go unnoticed by your child. Or, even answering a tough question in the class. But, when you underline it during your discussion with her, your child will become aware of what she has done. It will boost her self-confidence.

5. Create portrait trees: Set up a flannel board on one corner of the wall in your living room. Stick photographs of your children on the board. Write down the good qualities and strengths of each child on slips of paper and stick them above the photograph. Get the members of your extended family, and friends to do the same whenever they visit you. These portrait trees filled with compliments will remind your children of their strengths.

7. Engage in pretend play: Encourage your child to engage in pretend play and role-play activities with his cousins and friends during weekends and holidays. Ask him to choose the role of characters whom he thinks would be a challenge to emulate. For example, if he is diffident about participating in sports, ask him to imagine being a famous sportsperson and address a press conference following a victory. Such activities will help your child experience positive emotions that could eventually boost his confidence.

8. Take the lead: When you have family outings and parties, make your child responsible for planning and organizing the events. Assign her the role of leader and ensure that everyone takes instructions from her. This will be a big boost to her morale. Of course, you will need to guide her constantly during the initial phase until she is able to manage on her own.

9. Do the Mirror Talk: Encourage your child to face the mirror and talk aloud about his fears, aspirations, etc. He could give himself pep talks, focussing on the 'I can do it' attitude. Another interesting off-shoot of this activity can be posing questions such as, 'Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Tell me who's the smartest of all?' Your child can mimic the mirror with the reply, 'You, of course.' The questions can vary with the word 'smartest' being replaced with some of his qualities and traits.

10. Climb the ladder: Set up a mini ladder or paste the picture of a ladder on chart paper and hang it on the wall. Place your child's photograph on the bottom-most rung of the ladder. Talk with your child about the things she would like to learn or improve in herself. Together, decide on the little steps she can take to achieve her goals.  Move her picture to the next steps as she makes progress. Continue this until she reaches the top of the ladder. Then take up the next challenge and repeat the exercise. Visualizing her progress as she climbs the ladder will surely do a world of good to your child's self-confidence.

By building your child's self-confidence you will enable her to value herself, believe in herself, and strive towards success. For, as Helen Keller said, "Nothing can be done without hope and confidence."