school blog, schools blog, education blog

by Michael Grose ©

Australia's No 1 parenting educator!

The power of parents to shape a child is enormous.

Self-confidence is one area that parents have significant influence, particularly for children of primary school-age and below. Kids in these years are on a journey to work out what they can do and how they can fit into their various groups. They are the confidence and esteem-building years.

As a parent, you are in THE prime position to mirror back to kids how they should see themselves. You do this through your messages, your expectations and how you treat your child.

Confidence is often confused with extraversion, assertiveness, self-assuredness and cockiness. It’s not necessarily so.

You can be quiet, introverted and be full of self-doubt but still feel and act confidently in a given social or learning situation.

Confidence is more about risk-taking and trying new activities.  Confident kids are more likely to make the most of their potential as they’ll extend themselves both socially and learning-wise. Failure doesn’t reflect on them personally. Fears and anxieties, while present, don’t stop them from trying new activities. So how can you develop real and lasting sense of confidence in your kids?

Here are 10 ways to build confidence in your kids so they can take their place in the world:

1.     Model confident mindsets: Kids need to hear what a confident mindset sounds like. Kids pick up your thinking as well as your language so teach kids how to approach tricky or new situations confidently by doing so yourself. That means, don’t put yourself down if you make a mistake. Instead make sure your thinking reflects that mistakes are acceptable and part of learning, rather than a reflection on your personally.

2.     Encourage kids to look on the bright side: Optimism is catching and helps kids overcome their fears. Help kids set their antennae to look for the good, something positive or a learning in any situation.

3.     Help them understand self-talk: That little voice inside their heads can talk them up or talk them down. Low confidence kids use a great deal of negative self-talk. Get kids to listen to their self-talk and help them work out alternative messages that help them rather than hold them back.

4.     Recognise effort & improvement: Low risk-takers and perfectionists appreciate parents who focus more on the processes of what they do, rather than results. Effort, improvement and enjoyment are examples of processes that you can comment on.

5.     Focus on strength and assets: Fault-finding can become an obsession for some parents, particularly fathers. Step back and look at supposed faults through a different lens (i.e. stubbornness can be rebadged as determination, which is handy in many contexts). Let your kids know what their strengths are so they know what they are good at!

6.     Accept errors as part of learning: Don’t over react when kids don’t get the perfect score or make mistakes. Errors are part of learning, ask any golfer……….

7.     Give them real responsibility at home: Giving responsibility is a demonstration of faith. It fosters self-belief and also provides growth opportunities for kids. Confidence and responsibility go hand in hand.

8.     Develop self-help skills from an early age:  Confidence is linked to competence. You can praise a child until the cows come home, but unless he or she can do something they won’t feel confident. Basic self-skills are inextricably linked to self-esteem.

9.     Spend regular time teaching & training:  Parents are children’s first teachers. They educate them in everything from how to do up their shoelaces as pre-schoolers to how to fill out a tax form as late adolescents. Look for teachable moments where you can help your kids. They are everywhere!

10.   Build scaffolds to success and independence: Look for ways to make it easy for your child to be successful. That may mean that you break down complex activities into bit-sized chunks (learn to smooth the doona, before they make the whole bed) so they can experience success or even cope with stressful situations (go to an anxiety-inducing party for an hour rather than attend the whole party) so they can overcome their fears.

There are some powerful strategies outlined here. Think about how many of these you use already and which strategies that you would like to find out more about.

Effective parents do the basics well. Confidence-building is one of those foundation areas that can have an enormous impact on kids and one that we can all learn more about. 

..................................................................................................................

Michael Grose is a leading parening educator, renowned author of seven parenting books and runs parenting seminars around Australia.  He is also the 'Body & Soul' Parenting columnist of the Herald Sun, reaching 6 million readers every Sunday!  For more information about Michael Grose plus great parenting advice and resources visit www.parentingideas.com.au . 

...................................................................................................................

by Michael Grose ©

Australia's No 1 parenting educator!

It’s stating the obvious that boys and girls are different. One of the biggest differences is based around time and timing.

Get your head around this and you start to unravel the secret to successfully raising boys………and reduce some of the frustration you feel at times when you compare your son with your daughters, or other people’s daughters.

Here are three examples of how time and timing differs with boys, and how you can use this knowledge to your advantage:

1. Their maturity levels

Boys take longer to mature than girls. This is a source of great consternation in many families where the eldest is a boy preceded by a girl. If a boy’s sister is only a couple of years younger then there’s a good chance they are on a par academically and socially.

First borns boys like to have a competency gap between themselves and those that follow. A younger sister (or brother) who matures earlier can be a source of consternation leading many eldest boys to give up, or else they give their sister merry hell!  

Factor in their differing maturity rates when looking at boys’ school readiness, their transition to secondary school, and their move into adulthood.

2. What motivates them

Boys are more likely to live in the now than girls. A generalisation I know, but it’s true.
Teenage boys, in particular, live for the moment.

The trick is to use this knowledge to your advantage. For instance, avoid lecturing your teenager about how his current behaviour is going to impact on his adulthood. A 15 year-old can’t see life beyond next week let alone when he’s 25. So get into his timeframe when trying to motivate, dissuade or persuade him.

 For instance, you’re more likely to instil good sleep habits into boys if you point out that a good night’s sleep will help them play football/ guitar/surf/ pick up girls better than appealing to long-term health benefits.

3. Their ability to focus

Ever noticed how some boys will work at diminished capacity on things that are not important to them. This happens around schooling a lot. Give them a project that’s due in a week and they’ll amble along for six days and then focus like a laser beam the night before it’s due (often after a great deal of panic or a brief mental meltdown!)

One way to get boys to focus is shorten their deadlines. Give them two days, not two weeks to do something.  Even better shorten the deadline and give them a practical purpose (or a tangible reward if you can’t think of a good purpose) for doing something –  “hand this work in tomorrow and you’ll get five minutes of free play!”

Alternatively, if they drift along waiting until the last minute and then go into a mad panic, don’t sweat it. They may just be saving themselves for that big effort!

The best gifts to give a boy revolves around time.

Not just your time, although that is important, particularly for dads whose time boys crave. In fact, most boys crave some one-on-one time with their dads, as long as it’s done a way that’s relevant to their age.

But there’s two other time aspects to consider. First, make sure you give them the time they need to mature and develop.  Don’t expect them to be what you want them to be on your timing. Most boys take their time growing up.  It takes patience and time to grow a boy ....... sometimes decade or so.

The other aspect refers to communicating with boys.  Adults who do best with boys have a way of getting into their timeframe. They can talk with them about what interests them now, what’s important to them now, what’s grabbing their attention now. That’s relatively easy when your sons are under ten, but challenging when they are teenagers.

You have to be a little cunning to get into a teenage boy’s timeframe.  A parent who picks up a teenage boy from a party at midnight, just may have a better chance of getting into this timeframe and getting a window into what’s important than one who parents from a distance.
So time and timing are the keys!

Give boys time to mature, give them your time and get into their timeframe if you want to get on their wavelength.

..................................................................................................................

Michael Grose is a leading parening educator, renowned author of seven parenting books and runs parenting seminars around Australia.  He is also the 'Body & Soul' Parenting columnist of the Herald Sun, reaching 6 million readers every Sunday!  For more information about Michael Grose plus great parenting advice and resources visit www.parentingideas.com.au . 

...................................................................................................................

by Michael Grose ©

Australia's No 1 parenting educator!

Choices, responsibility & character

“It’s not my fault. He made me do it!”

Ever had a child say this to you when they’ve done the wrong thing?

The default mechanism for many kids is to deflect responsibility away from themselves. ‘I’m not blame’ becomes a mantra ……… .that stays for life!

Adults do it as well. Things go wrong and we often look for something or someone else to blame.

We become short-tempered with your kids, and we put it down to the stress of parenting, or blame the hard day at work.  That excuses us ………well not entirely.

We may get a ticket for speeding and we automatically blame the other cars around you for going at that same speed. So it becomes the fault of ‘others’, not us.

There are many ways we deflect responsibility away from our behaviour. And it’s not smart!

One of the most powerful notions to get across to kids is that they have a choice about how they think, act and behave! Situations maybe difficult but they are rarely victim of circumstance.

Making choices is about taking responsibility. It is the mature thing to do. They don’t have to be adults to show this maturity.
Blame or deflection negates choice. Challenge kids when they say ‘I had no choice’. There’s always a choice. It’s just that some choices are harder to make than others.

Here are some choices that face many kids:

• They can choose whether to put on their happy face or their grumpy face each morning.
• They can choose to fight with a sibling or they can walk away and go to their bedroom.
• They can choose to do their homework or watch television.
• They can choose to drink alcohol when their friends do or they can say no to drinking.

Some of these choices are hard, no doubt. But they are choices, nonetheless.

Character is developed when kids make hard choices. Resilience is encouraged when kids exercise choice as they show they are in charge of their behaviour. Confidence is boosted as difficult choices take them into new ground and make them feel uncomfortable, but they grow through these choices.

Don’t let your kids deflect responsibility or blame others. Remind them constantly that they have a choice about how they respond to others or their circumstances.  The exercise of choice is long term strategy, but it’s a big one.

You can start by making sure you take responsibility for your behaviours. Start today……….even if you feel crappy. There are no excuses. That’s what taking responsibility is about!

..................................................................................................................

Michael Grose is a leading parening educator, renowned author of seven parenting books and runs parenting seminars around Australia.  He is also the 'Body & Soul' Parenting columnist of the Herald Sun, reaching 6 million readers every Sunday!  For more information about Michael Grose plus great parenting advice and resources visit www.parentingideas.com.au . 

...................................................................................................................