How can my child become self-confident?
Self-confidence - being aware of oneself - is something of a function of self-esteem. Children and young people today, for example, have more self-confidence: they are aware of their existence. But that doesn't mean that they have a good sense of self-worth. These young people today know that they have value - simply because they are human beings. And it makes me very happy to see them walking down the street with their heads held high, whereas my generation walked shyly along the walls with their heads down. In the past, young people were told that they only had a right to exist if they were good. And it was clear that, like all children in this world, they did a lot of things that couldn't be considered «good», so they constantly felt guilty and looked down at the ground in shame.
For example, young people who have committed a killing spree are usually described as inconspicuous, well-adjusted, nice and decent. And of course: they come from good families who have a good relationship with all their neighbours. It is typical of «good families» - especially American ones - that they sing the praises of their children all the time. And what these children then develop is not healthy self-esteem, but fuelled, inflated egos. All it takes is one little thing to happen and these egos dissolve into nothing. A small disappointment, that his grades aren't good enough, that he wasn't picked for the next football match and so on, is enough for this young person to burst into a rage.
Children who are constantly sung the praises of do not develop healthy self-esteem, but inflated egos.
These children were constantly praised and beguiled with big words: «You're marvellous! It's amazing what you're doing! How fantastic you are!» But they have not experienced warmth and authentic closeness. In other words, these children have been consistently betrayed by their parents.
Personal reaction instead of empty praise
Personally, it always makes me very sad when someone gives me a positive label: I start to cry inside because it's a label that painfully reminds me of how much I didn't feel noticed. It was my own therapists' mistake that they thought I needed to learn to accept praise. But that wasn't the point, it was that such a label comes across as completely devoid of content and does nothing but make you lonely. When someone says to me: "You're great!", they're not saying anything. It has no value. It's not easy to keep realising that you've basically said nothing.
When I want to teach this to teachers or parents, for example, I always make the following comparison: Imagine that your best friend is an artist. You haven't seen him for a long time and now he invites you to an art opening where he is showing his latest paintings. And now you go there and he asks you what you think of his paintings. It's quite clear that he doesn't want to hear exaggerated praise or devastating criticism, but as your old friend, he wants to know what his paintings say to you, what they trigger in you. He wants a personal response, even if it's a very brief one: "Sorry, your pictures don't mean anything to me!" But this answer is okay for him. The sentence "That's great what you're doing!", on the other hand, would not be. And if you get enough personal reactions, you can then decide for yourself at some point whether you are good or not.
It's the same when I give a presentation. If someone says to me: «You're a brilliant speaker!», that doesn't give me anything. But if someone comes back and tells me that this or that sentence of mine has changed something in their life, then I know whether I was a «good or bad teacher». That is the essential difference!
Children know how good they are at something
It is very important to realise that praise does not convey quality to children. And children from the age of six or seven are very realistic: they know how good they are because they compare themselves with their friends. So when they write an essay, they know that their essay didn't turn out as well as the one of the person sitting next to them. When they go home and their parents say: «How great this essay is, we'll copy it straight away and send it to all the relatives!», the child knows that this is not true. They know: «My parents are praising me like this now because they love me, and that's okay! But I know that this essay is not good.»
And this has nothing to do with what the advice literature from America says: «Stand in front of the mirror every day and say for five minutes: I'm great!» No, that's not it. It's more like self-hypnosis and can't really help anyone. In this context, the categories «good/bad» are superfluous. People are neither good nor bad - people are! Children are neither good nor bad - they are! And I haven't met any good or bad parents, but I have met many parents who do their best to be good parents. I think we need to finally realise that: We are beings who are in relationships.
I have met neither good nor bad parents. But many who do their best to be good parents.
I would like to give an example of this: In one of our three-year training programmes in Denmark, there is a woman who became pregnant in her first year and divorced shortly afterwards. She had no choice but to bring her seven-month-old baby with her. And for me, this little boy is the best proof that children are born as social, interdependent beings. He sat on the floor in the middle of the group and played with all kinds of toys. Of course it happened every fifteen minutes that he hurt himself with something. At such times, he would sit up and look at his mum: If he now observed that his mum was busy - she was talking to someone or she was thinking hard - then he would turn to the next person and then the next and so on until he discovered someone who was accessible to him. He crawled over there, the person took him on their lap, the little one cried a little and went back to his toys. However, when he got hungry, he would look at his mum until she noticed him, because she was the only one who could do that.
This boy behaved better in a group than most adults do. Why? Because his mum had confidence in him: he can behave socially. Of course, she felt a little shy at first, thinking that her child might disturb the others. But after this was openly discussed in the group and everyone agreed that the little one could be there, she felt comfortable with it. However, if she had continued to feel guilty and thought that her son was disturbing the others, it would have been the same: He would have become just as uncomfortable as his mum. He can behave as socially as he does because his mother relates to him with so much trust - his mother's relationship is therefore of a high quality.
All she needs to know is that she should confirm this to her young son at the end of each day by hugging him and telling him: «I'm happy that you feel good in this group, because this way I can continue learning and working!» Even if the boy doesn't understand the words, he understands her expression. He doesn't have to understand every single word. But his mother's expression is feedback that increases his self-esteem. He feels valuable to his mum.
However, mums usually react automatically with sentences like: «You're such a sweet, good boy. Mum loves you so much!» And that categorises him. He will be very happy in such a case - but for his mum and not for himself. That's the difference!
