​Parents’ fear of seeing their children upset or frustrated as they go about mundane tasks has led to what experts call “helicopter parents”—those parents who raise their children under complete control, overprotective, and removed like a snowplow. , all obstacles in the life of their children.

Why children need self-confidence

All parents want their children to grow up to be confident and successful adults who are positive about challenges and don’t give up even when faced with obstacles.

Confidence is the ability to face challenges, it’s the feeling that tells you, “I can do it.” Psychologists call this ability “self-efficacy.” A person’s self-efficacy consists of belief in his ability to cope with certain types of activities. This belief in one’s abilities, this “I can” is nurtured from childhood. And it comes with frustration, anger, hard work, failure, and ultimately success. This is how trust is born.

As parents, we are the ones who have to help them develop this confidence. Not solving problems for them. Jean Piaget, a famous child psychologist, summarizes the benevolent involvement of parents in a child’s life: “When we teach a child something, we do not let him invent something himself.” To strengthen the child’s confidence, you need to try not to limit his ideas. Try to focus on the process of his discoveries rather than providing him with solutions. Give him emotional support, but don’t solve the problem.

Here are some ideas that parents can apply in everyday life to help you have confident children:

1. Check the child’s frustration

The frustration children experience when they can’t do something on their own can help them later in life. By immediately offering them help, you will only limit their ideas, creativity and potential. They will learn to ask for help when they fail and never know how to fight for what they want. It is necessary to confirm their frustration, that is, to provide them with encouragement to increase their emotional development. As they grow older, they will learn to better recognize and manage their emotions.

When they are encouraged, they will be motivated to try again. Tell him that the frustration he feels is normal and part of the creative process, or that the frustration he feels when he fails at something is completely normal, that you are there for him and that you appreciate his efforts.

2. Teach him to create from nothing

Save empty boxes that are left when you order or buy something, toilet paper rolls, gift wrapping paper. Use them together with your child to create something, such as toys or pencil holders. In this way, the child will learn to give life to useful objects from scratch, learn what it means to be creative and how to use old things to recycle them, turning them into other useful things.

Imagination and creative abilities are developed through the game. The development of a child’s creative abilities is an endless series of little things. Creative abilities are developed by performing seemingly insignificant actions.

3. Teach him the stages of problem solving

A 2010 study found that children who lack problem-solving skills are at greater risk of depression and suicide. In turn, developing these skills can help improve mental health. It is good to teach a child from an early age that there is more than one way to solve a problem.

First, tell him that avoiding the problem won’t make it go away. Second, let him solve the problem, but guide his actions when he finds himself in a decision-making situation:

• help him identify the problem by asking questions and listening to what he says – what upset you at school today? why did you feel sad – even to the point of helping him say the problem out loud: The kids don’t play with me at recess!
• keep asking him how he sees a way out of this situation; do not criticize wrong ideas, but encourage him to think and find a solution to his problem.
• together, list the pros and cons of each solution that the child found – which one is better?
• choose a solution and encourage him to implement it. Does not work? Help him choose a different solution from the ones he found above.

An important step in this process is to take your time to always jump to your child’s aid or give them some solutions on the tray. You have to let him use his mental abilities to solve problems. This will encourage him to think creatively. If he can’t find a solution, you can intervene. But before that, let him use his mind.

4. Allow him to make mistakes. Those who avoid failure also avoid success

Children, like adults, are not perfect. If you don’t allow them to make mistakes by constantly showing them how to avoid failure, they will feel limited and censored. And they won’t learn anything either, because failure, no matter how brutal, is part of the learning process. And an important part of success. Those who avoid failure also avoid success.

Children do not really need care and help from us, parents. They need to try their hand, discover everything the way they want, find solutions to their problems on their own. When we realize that our only job is to be there for them and give them emotional support, everyone will be better off.