3 Secrets to Teaching
Your Kids to Choose Confidence Over Fear
By Ryan Maule, author of the children’s book I Am Awesome!
Being a parent of a child in grade school means constantly
sitting on the edge of your seat. Changes are happening all the time that
affect the way your child reacts and responds to everyday life
situations. This makes parenting overwhelming, feeling like you’re just
sitting around waiting to come up with answers to issues you didn’t realize
would come up in the first place.
One of those changes seen regularly is a loss in self-esteem
or confidence. Many parents face the dilemma of seeing confidence deplete
with little to no understanding of what’s going on or how it
happened. Most of the time we don’t even notice until the confidence has
dropped so far that we wonder how it will ever recover!
So, what happened? If you’re like me, it’s easy to remember
the moments where your child looked like they were absolutely
unstoppable. I’ve seen my daughter take on roller coasters that made me
nauseas, introduce herself to a group of strangers where I hoped to just blend
in and get ignored, and perform, sing, and dance in front of crowds that make
even the most confident of parents wonder “where did this kid come
from?!” For a while it seemed like the only thing that scared her was
Santa Claus.
But then, without notice or warning, she doesn’t have that
confidence anymore. She doesn’t want to perform, she’s withdrawn, she
doesn’t want to go on even simple child rides, or stand out at school or in
small groups.
Where did the
confidence go?
The reality is that these depletions in confidence are
normal and common throughout not only the growing up process, but throughout
your child’s entire life. These life tests never go away. The trick is to
be able to recognize and label the problem that is always getting in the
way. It can be called many things and summed up into one word: fear.
Fear is the main reason your children lose some or most of
their self-confidence. It can be discovering the fear of death, the fear
of judgement, the fear of disapproval, the fear of disappointment, the fear of
embarrassment, or even the fear of simply failing. They could even just be
scared in general. Fear is always present and will never fully go away.
Fear is the amplifier of all the negative outcomes in every situation that we
hold in the back of our mind.
The secret is to teach our children how to react to fear in
order to maintain and build their confidence. To do this, I have three
easy secrets to help your kids choose confidence over fear.
1. Teach Your
Children to Recognize and Admit Their Fears
Most situations where confidence is attacked are never
recognized because we allow ourselves to get away with lying to each other.
Instead of properly saying “I’m afraid of” or “I’m scared to,” we allow bad
excuses and “I just don’t want to’s” to be acceptable answers. Teaching your
kids to identify the thoughts and feelings that are fear-related helps them to
create the potential for a stronger, more confident response.
2. Make A Rule of No
Hypotheticals
This secret is one that all families should use and applies
to both adults and children. Hypotheticals are imaginary negative outcomes
and more commonly, fantasy worst-case scenarios. It’s so easy to think up
disasters and failures and play them out like a movie in your mind. The
answer is to not allow them. No hypotheticals means basing your decision
on only the things that are facts and that you already know. By not
allowing your worst-case scenario to impact your decision, you create
opportunities where positive outcomes are truly possible.
3. Discuss Past
Successes!
When you’re in the moment, it’s hard to remember past
experience. Sometimes all you need is a little reminder of great moments
of past confidence to inspire more instances of future confidence!
“Do you remember that
time you did this same thing and it went perfectly?!”
“Mom and I were so
proud of you the last time you handled a situation like this!”
“You are awesome at
this!”
“This is nothing for
you!”
“You could do this in
your sleep!”
By drawing on past successes, your children will start to see
beyond the fear and see themselves conquering the world!
RYAN MAULE is the author of the children’s book I Am Awesome!
He is also a nationally recognized
and highly sought-after motivational speaker, host of the popular Expect
Awesome Podcast, and the president of Integrity Doctors, the world’s largest
chiropractic business organization. Over the last 15 years Ryan has traveled
the world spreading the message of expecting awesome and building a stronger
self-image in order to gain a God-powered confidence. Ryan is happily married
to his awesome wife Amber and they live in Florida with their two awesome kids,
Summer Grace and Nolan Zeal.
