Teaching Kids Self Belief

Unfortunately in our society, we are taught far more to "be careful, realistic, rational, logical, sensible, etc - all very left brain dominated activities, than we are to have a dream, hold the belief, and take the bold steps necessary to see it come to fruition.  As a parent, I totally understand how this happens.  We don't want to see our children hurt (either physically by being too daring, or emotionally by being too "different") so we can tend to fill them full of warnings; so much so that they lose the essence of their true selves and their sense of belief in themselves.  It happens subtly and creeps in even when we are wary of doing so.

By way of example, my husband and son were having an ongoing debate (which as it progressed was getting more intense).  My then 4 year old son, who had already broken his arm, once jumping off a bed, aged 3, once again wanted to jump off something; this time something a little higher and more challenging.  My husband was concerned and urging him to get down before he hurt himself and my son was adamant he wouldn't hurt himself.  After listening to the banter in the background (but getting louder) for about half an hour I went to investigate.

My son addressed me and explained he wanted to jump off the work bench but that dad didn’t want him to.  Trying to ensure that I didn’t undermine what dad was trying to impress upon him, I reminded my son that we loved him very much and therefore wanted to keep him safe.  I also reminded him that he had previously injured himself jumping off things and this was probably why dad didn’t want him to launch himself off the bench.  Now not being a silly kid he nodded his head and gave this some real consideration before saying,

“Mum, if I jump off here will I hurt myself?”  Of course this is a trick question because the reality is actually anyone’s guess and there are so many chance variables involved it is truly impossible to tell.  However, it wasn’t a particularly high bench (probably exactly the sort of thing I would have done as a kid) and I thought he was probably in a better position to understand his own physical ability than I was so I said to him,

“Well, there’s a chance you will hurt yourself, and there’s a chance you won’t.  You need to think about how you feel about it and how important it is to you before you decide whether to jump off or not.”  This might seem like a lot for a little kid to take in but you would be amazed how well kids can think if you give them the chance.  After a moment’s pause he nodded and said,

“I wanna do it and I think I can”.

“Ok then” I said.  He jumped, no injury, jumped two more times and was over it.  He had a sense of achievement and success, he also had a sense of self belief and trust and the banter was over with (thank God!).

Of course with children there will be many times when we have to think for them because life experience tells us they are putting themselves in danger which is unacceptably high and as a responsible parent we simply cannot allow it.  However, we must be careful to pick those times very carefully.  If we do it all the time, we kill their sense of belief in themselves their sense of capability, and dramatically limit their thinking, often for the rest of their lives.

Those of us who have spent time and energy, undoing the best meaning advice of friends and family trying to “get back to ourselves”, our core essence and  to achieve those dreams that got locked up inside us as kids can truly appreciate the importance of allowing latitude where we can.  So next time you hear a sentence starting with “Be” coming from your lips, just check how necessary your intervention really is so that we can allow our children to flourish as richly and expansively as ever they can.