Five Power Words to Make Your Kids Confident
Confidence and self-esteem are essential in life and a person will struggle without them. As a children grow, it's often their parents who form and shape their self-confidence.
For instance, as your child learned to walk you were probably there on the sidelines offering encouragement and comfort when they fell. That encouragement helped them learn the skill and gain confidence.
Supportive parents give a lifelong boost to their kids.
5 Power Words for Kids
As we often face more failures than successes in life, it is important to have a positive inner voice that encourages us to persevere. This starts with the parent’s voice when the child is young.
Here are five confidence boosting words for parents to use.
Love
Telling your child that you love them is one of the best ways to boost self-confidence. It's important throughout their whole lives, from infancy to adulthood. It tells them that they are worthy of love, they are loveable, and they have support from you.
Using this word will make them feel good, confident, and secure. At times, your child may feel unworthy of love or experience a period of low self-esteem due to challenges and failures. Letting them know that you love them during that time demonstrates that your love is unconditional and they're lovable even when they make mistakes.
Strong
Indicating that your child is strong (emotionally or physically) boosts their self-confidence. It can help them feel able to accomplish difficult tasks. If a child feels strong, they're more likely to to take on new challenges and persevere through difficulties.
Children build resilience through experiences when they're motivated to keep trying even after they've failed. This perseverance and the discovery that they're able to make it through tough times raises confidence and self-esteem.
Powerful
Telling your child that they are powerful lets them know that they make a difference in the world. They gain confidence from knowing that their words impact others as well as their actions. Even more so than telling a child this, listening to your child and showing them they are powerful matters.
When you demonstrate that they are just as important as an adult, and their words are taken with the same consideration as someone older than them, they learn that their words and actions have great meaning, be it good or bad.
When a child believes that their words and actions matter, they gain self-confidence.
Beautiful
While this word has a different meaning in the adult world as it typically describes the attractive qualities of someone’s body, when used with children, it tells them that they are masterpieces. A child who feels beautiful inside and out will undoubtedly be more confident in themselves when they face new challenges and situations.
Thank You
Saying thank you is part of modeling gratitude in your family, making it easier for your child to express thanks themselves. Not only that, a child who feels like they make a difference will be more likely to repeat the helpful action in the future or try other ways to be helpful.
When appreciated, children feel important, loved, and, subsequently, confident in themselves.
The Power of Building Confidence in a Child
With confidence, children continue to explore and learn new things despite failed attempts or challenges. As we often face more failures than successes, it is important to have a positive inner voice that encourages us to persevere and this starts with the parent’s voice when the child is young.
Parents Shape Their Children’s Futures
A person’s inner voice is said to be the result of their parent's voice during childhood. If the parent is harsh and critical, the child may develop a harsh and critical inner voice. If a parent is encouraging and supportive, the child can develop a positive inner voice that feeds their confidence and self-esteem.
The best way to feed this voice is to offer encouragement and positive words of support. There are many more phrases that a parent can use to boost their child’s confidence. We have a list of 64 positive things to say to kids.
Alissa Zorn is an author, and founder of the website Overthought This. She's a coach and cartoonist passionate about helping people overcome perfectionism and shame to build authentic, joyful lives. Alissa is certified through the International Coach Federation and got her Trauma-Informed Coaching certification from Moving the Human Spirit. She wrote Bounceback Parenting: A Field Guide for Creating Connection, Not Perfection, and is always following curiosity to find her next creative endeavor.