As a parent we all want our children to have confidence and resilience but we are not sure how to build it.

Younger children seem to have bounds of confidence but by the age of about 7 girls start to loose their confidence through friendship issues and becoming self conscious.

Below are 5 ways to help build your childs confidence

1. Focus on all the things they enjoy and what they are good at. Your child might really enjoy music so encouraging them to pursue their passion will naturally build confidence. Once they have confidence in something they are good at and enjoy then building confidence in other areas that they find more challenging will become easier as they already have success to reference back to
2. Ensure they have friendships outside of school. This is especially important for girls. There are always a lot of playground politics and when a child knows that they have friends outside of school that love and accept her it is easier for her to understand that having friendship ups and downs is a normal thing
3. Spend special time together, make sure they know how much you love them and how important they are. Ask them to play your time together and this will allow you to see how they like to be appreciated. Some children prefer being told all the time how good they are where other children just want your undivided attention.
4. Speak to them about mistakes and that everyone makes mistakes. Talk about mistakes that you have made in the past and what you have learnt from them. Talk about other peoples mistakes and what they did to make things better. Normalising mistakes can take the added pressure of them and allow them to relax and just try their best
5. Give them responsibilities around the house. Feed the dog, unpack the dishwasher, mow the lawn, put the garbage out. This allows them to feel like a valued member of the family and also teaches responsibility