We always say that we want to cultivate children's "self-confidence", but what kind of performance is enough to have self-confidence? How do you define this confidence?
Psychologically, the "self-efficacy" proposed by A. Bandura in the theory of social learning can better explain the concept of "self-confidence".
Self-efficacy refers to an individual's estimation of his or her ability to successfully cope with a particular situation.
There are a few key words to note here, and that is the "estimation" of the ability to "successfully" cope with a particular situation.
This requires that the child first have a "successful experience" and can make a "proper assessment" of his or her abilities based on experience. For example, if a child participates in a dance competition, he needs to consider:
Have I participated in a dance competition before and passed it?
How did I perform compared to others in the same competition group?
What do others say about me, positive or negative?
What is my current status? Will you be able to complete the race successfully?
The first point, "my own past successful experience", is the most powerful factor affecting self-confidence, and these small things that "I can do" are the cornerstone of children's self-confidence.
More importantly, the power of "I Can" will develop horizontally, expanding from what the child is good at and expanding to other areas, thus building broader self-confidence.
So how do you increase the frequency of "I can" situations in your child? This has to start with improving the child's basic ability. Here are three of the more important basic competencies.
Balance capacity
Balance ability refers to the ability to maintain the posture of the body, especially on smaller support surfaces, the ability to control the body's center of gravity.
The ability to balance is the basic ability of all static and dynamic activities. Any exercise of a person can be said to be carried out almost in a state of maintaining physical balance, especially the activities of large muscles, and it is more necessary to have a good balance ability to be competent.
The vestibular organs control the balance, so we must pay attention to the development of exercise children's vestibular function.
Coordination capacity
Coordination skills include hand-eye coordination, left-right coordination, upper and lower body coordination and other aspects.
Physical coordination ability is related to the child's various activities from an early age, such as crawling, tearing paper, learning to walk, bouncing and jumping, etc., which can exercise coordination ability.
Muscle control ability
Here I am talking about the ability to control muscles, including large muscles (coarse movements) and small muscles (fine movements) two aspects.
Large muscle refers to systemic physical activity. Children explore and recognize the people and things around them through large muscle activity.
Small muscles usually refer to the development of fine movements in the hands, which are closely related to daily life. Brushing teeth, washing faces, eating, writing, housework, playing with toys, etc., will exercise the development of children's small muscles.
Of course, in addition to the above "hardware" aspects, we also need to use some small skills in family education. Here are a few more maneuverable methods.
Make your child feel needed
As adults, we must have felt this way:
I am needed by you, and what I do for you is meaningful to you, and it fills my heart with a sense of value.
Similarly, if the child can feel that he is "needed", his inner sense of value and achievement will also increase, and his self-confidence will increase the next time he faces the same situation.
Then we must learn to "show weakness" in life, and when doing certain things, we can ask for the child's opinion or help, which is helpful for the child's expression and logical ability.
Expand your child's horizons
Although there are no boundaries and no standards for expanding your horizons, it is easy to achieve the effect of doubling your efforts with half the effort in improving your self-confidence.
For example, in the matter of writing essays, children who have personally experienced the beauty of mountains and rivers will be able to express the clarity of the water and the majesty of the mountains with words.
Of course, this requires us to consciously guide, so that children can see more, listen more, feel more, and remember more, in order to better transform audio-visual information.
Therefore, parents must let their children go out more, read more books, try more, and contact more within the scope of their ability, which can not only enrich his insights, but also help him discover his own interests.
Accompany your child to develop and execute a plan
Although we have said this method many times, have you never practiced it before when you are reading the article?
Planning in advance is equivalent to predicting the risk, and parents assist in reminding them to implement, which increases the chances of a successful experience for children. The more this positive cycle, the higher the child's self-confidence.