Building self-esteem and confidence in children is an important part of their emotional development. Children who feel confident and valued are more likely to cope with challenges, try new things, and build positive relationships.
In this post, you’ll find simple and practical tips to help your child develop a strong and healthy sense of self-worth.
It’s easy to feel motivated when reading these ideas, but harder to remember them during everyday moments. To help you stay on track, we’ve created a simple Daily Confidence Boosters printable with practical reminders you can use each day. You can download it at the end of the post.
Simple Ways to Help Children Feel Valued and Supported
- Provide them with opportunities to feel good and happy, surrounded by people with whom they feel safe and happy.
- Let them know you love them unconditionally, even when you don’t like their behavior.
- Show genuine interest in the things they enjoy.
- Ask for their opinions on everyday topics (for example, a TV show or a family decision) to show that their voice matters.
- Support and nurture their interests.
- Spend “special time” with each of your children. They will have your undivided attention during that time, and will not have to compete with their siblings for attention. It will also show them how special they are.
- When you need to address your children’s behavior, never label them. Focus on the behavior and not your child. Say “what you did wasn’t ok” instead of “you were bad”.
How to Help Kids Feel More Confident and Capable
- Give your child opportunities to experience success. Offer help when needed, but allow them to complete tasks independently.
- Praise effort, progress, and persistence, not just results.
- Teach them new skills and allow them to practice.
- Encourage them to try new activities that expand their abilities and interests.
- Let them teach you something they know, such as how to use a game or app.
Encouraging Independence to Build Confidence
- Assign age-appropriate responsibilities (or tasks suited to their abilities or their developmental stage). As a parent of a child with disabilities, we try to provide opportunities aligned with our child’s capabilities.
- Give them opportunities to make choices in everyday situations.
How to Build Resilience and Healthy Expectations in Kids
- Help them understand that everyone experiences both success and failure.
- Talk about strengths and areas for improvement in a balanced way. Emphasize how we all have strengths and weaknesses.
- Share your own mistakes and model how to respond positively to them.
- Help them understand how we learn from mistakes. When something doesn’t work the way they expected, discuss with them how they could have done it differently and what they learned from the experience.
- Talk about the role of effort and persistence in achieving goals.
Teaching Social Skills to Support Self-Esteem
- Teach them how to ask someone to stop a behavior.
Related reading: Assertive communication for kids. - Practice problem-solving in social situations.
- Help them develop conversational skills.
Helping Kids Develop Positive Thinking
- Help your child reframe negative thoughts into more helpful and balanced ones.
- Encourage helpful self-talk. Help your child notice how they talk to themselves and guide them toward more encouraging and realistic thoughts.
Building Academic Confidence and Study Skills
- Teach study and organization skills, such as time management, setting priorities, making a summary or identifying key ideas in a text.
Other Self-Esteem and Confidence-Building Resources
Self-Esteem Workbooks and Resources
Free Self-Esteem Printable: Confidence-Building Action List (PDF)
Download your free printable Confidence-Building Action List to help you put key tips into practice. This simple tool includes practical daily actions you can use to support children’s confidence in everyday moments.
