Welcome back to the Simplicity podcast with me, Kim John Payne. I was doing a workshop just a couple of days ago and a dad asked me about what could he do for a child who seemed to have really low confidence and low self-esteem and would often really struggle in many situations to feel like they were standing on good ground. And as I was flying back home after that workshop on the plane I was I was just making some notes and thinking about about what what really is at the core of this.
What can we do to help when our kids go through episodes of really feeling a lack of confidence. Now one of the first things that occurs to me with the question of confidence and I've seen it over and over through the years is that kids confidence will wax and wane. Some kids you know more generally are more confident, others less.
But one of the patterns I've seen is that confidence can increase and decrease as various life phases you know as a child moves through their life and the phases in it. I've seen kids get really wobbly you know around sort of five, five and a half, six. It's a sort of a big change.
It's a little bit like earlier on around two or three. That's another you know period of frustration. It's a time of big change.
The five or six as I mentioned around nine, eight and a half through nine and a half is another real time when I've seen a bunch of kids who are previously doing all right start to start to feel not so confident. You know don't get out there in the same strong way in the playground or with friends or or are easily wounded or can push back easily. You know start to become a little more defiant.
Which you know kids who are becoming defiant is often a lack of confidence. You know they're over overcompensating and I think that's very important to understand. So there's a phase to this.
You know I remember my my own kids going through was really about 15. It wasn't so much 14 that is often spoken about but with both my own kids it was more around 15 that they went through a phase of not feeling so confident in themselves and needing needing to to just a little bit of extra warmth and help to get through that time. But what is it and you know that we can can actually do during during these times that help our help our kids get through? One of the primary ways is to come alongside our kids and to not necessarily have to not you know grill them, talk to them a lot, you know talk to them about self-esteem, try and cheer them up and say you're okay you're a great kid you're a really great kid don't worry about it.
All that you can easily overdo that kind of thing and it gives the the child or the teen the impression that you're not really tuning in with where they are at. Like if they're going through a phase of of lack of confidence or they're or they you know they easily the kind of child that can easily go into that state anyway and you're saying it's gonna be fine you know you're a great kid. The child begins to sort of doubt that you're actually paying attention in inwardly there's that voice I mean I'm sure they appreciate the affirmation and all that but we can easily overdo that.
Coming alongside this metaphor that I use from time to time of mooring your canoe alongside another and just saying I've got you, I'm with you, I'm here for you. That kind of gesture I feel is a crucial beginning point for a child who lacks confidence because what you're doing is as you put your paddle across onto their boat and you throw the rope over and you you know and they sort of secure the line it gives them that extra feeling of of of extra buoyancy actually and and a feeling of I'm not alone because a lot of the lack of confidence sometimes comes from a feeling of the world is really big and now I'm not alone. Now alongside that mooring and coming alongside the theme of simplicity comes into this again and balance in childhood as it does in so many aspects of life because a child is bound to feel more confident when life is more navigatable you know where where there's not too much going on where they feel like yeah I can cope with this I can deal with this.
Conversely when life is moving too fast it leads a child into feeling nervous, insecure, anxious and it's going to press all the buttons of that lack of confidence it's going to it's going to feel like this is too big the world is too big it's too fast and and everyone else seems to be doing okay with it and I'm not and that feeling is a tricky one for any child to have so another part of mooring an adult canoe alongside a child is to lead them into calmer waters just to sort of just take some time out a lot more gentle walks in nature a lot more rhythm in their life a lot more time with mum and dad and siblings as their siblings you know playing board games a lot more cozy warm simple activities around the home a lot more decompression time and just giving a child downtime limits on the amount of time that they you know having busy stuff go on limits around bedtime and if they're older you know with with homework you know they're not staying up very very late and getting very tired so you know time-based homework as opposed to content based and you know one can speak to any any good teacher is going to be open to a quiet conversation about a child struggling with with confidence and how they just need more rest need more downtime need to recoup a little bit now that the next stage really the second step having sort of secured the lines calm things down is is to make some little plans and I do mean little things about the next day about the next week coming up play I mean it's it's okay with a teenager to do maybe some longer range planning if they're coming up to their college years and so on but really the emphasis here is on some things that might work some things that will just feel nice that that would be fun to do and and and some plans about how a child can move back into the flow into that more the flow of the mainstream River if you'll move the move the canoe alongside and taking them out of the busy patch and out of the bumpy waters once a child in a month or two goes by maybe six months even but certainly a month or two at least of quieter waters it might be time to to think about okay what can we do now and and to make a little plan about the re-entry that seems very doable and doesn't have that look in a child's eye that that seems that seems scary like really scary it's okay to to to be able to encourage and push just a little bit but if you get that feeling of real scariness and that's just and a child does not want to go there it's questionable whether to push really really hard for a kid doing to to do that the and just to say look it's okay we're you know we're making plans now about how you can have for example some sleepovers if sleepovers have been scary for a child there may be five six particularly eight nine ten years old and there and they've been reticent and weary even scared of of sleepovers you can make a plan a little bit of a plan of how to to do that a little and also a walk-off plan how if things go really wrong what you can do how to tough it out a little bit what you can do in terms of self-talk you know be able to say to a child if you get really scared and you're in someone else's house and you're sleeping over then you can you can say what words can you say to yourself to try and calm yourself down or what do you what can you do that will help you feel better and just develop a whole this is by way of example of course but develop a whole plan around what a child can do and it might be about going to parties it might be about playdates it might be about sports clubs it might be about myriad things but make a little plan around how a child can re-enter that but also assure them that some of the plan probably won't work out you know very few plans everything works out and let a child know that so they don't because a lot of the the seat I found of a lack of confidence is kids also that that hold themselves or are held to very high or even impossibly high standards it's got a lot to do with confidence to be able to say to a child you know what some of that won't work out and some will and don't worry about it because when we talk about this a little bit more we'll we'll try and figure out why some things work and we'll just do more of that and the things that didn't work out well we'll see if we can work that out too but if they don't we can just drop that and we'll just do more of the things that do work out now this strengths-based way of working with a kid being able to focus on the strengths and build them up over the years I've become more and more open to doing this and don't see it as as a sort of a soft Namby Pamby you know all that stuff way of working with with kids when you do more of what they love to do and you build up their confidence through competency then what they're not good at doing will stand much more of a chance of them feeling strong enough to take that on that they come from that position of strength rather than hammering away at the things they don't do well and so that whole philosophy of working with what is strong in order to address what is weak is something that I've found I want to say thousands of times but countless numbers of times has helped kids in home settings in educational settings it's not a soft way of doing things it's a way of building up enough ground under the child's feet for them to be able to step forward and take on what is not you know is not so strong in their lives now this the last step which I've alluded to is assuring a child that there'll be times in the evenings or you know maybe even set a time where you work together to figure things out I just want to emphasize that last part I was talking about now where you review what worked what didn't and then you work from that strength-based place where genuine affirmation can be given because no longer are you saying oh you're a great kid you'll be fine you know with the sort of a ruffle of the hair and and a child's not feeling confident at all after this little three-step process that I've been speaking about it's very simple really then the affirmation about what they did do well you know that they did cope with the sleepover as best they possibly could or you know they did go to that party but it was just fine to leave earlier because that was the that was the walk-off plan you know that was the plan B in case they wanted to and that all those affirmations can be given and but now they're genuine it has the child feeling yeah my my mum my dad they really know me that's that was really true I did do well with that okay so that's that's that three-step little plan for trying to help a child build their their confidence up I sure hope that's helpful okay bye bye for now
