One of the biggest reasons that children nowadays are struggling with anxiety so much is because
of a lack of self confidence. In this video, you'll learn 3 vital elements for how to develop
self confidence in your children. I recently saw a television program about a group of
teenage children who were all athletes and they were competing for some title of being
the best athlete or something. And they had all of these different sports that they needed
to try with each other. And each of them excelled in one sport in particular. Well, some of
the children who were on the program, they were fearless. They would try anything no
matter what. Someone might say to them, well, "You got get hurt in this way or this way.
But this is what you do not to get hurt." And they'd say, "Okay, fine. No problem. Here
I go." And then would just jump in and try and adapt to a sport that maybe they never
even tried before. Then there were other children in the group who maybe weren't as fearless.
But if you explain to them, they decided to take the brave step and just adapt the best
they could. Maybe they knew they never be the best one. But they were going to participate
nonetheless. But there was one athlete who is different than all the rest. She would
break down. She did say that she had anxiety. I don't know the level or how it came to be.
I don't presume to know any of those things. But what I saw was a definite lack of self
confidence. She was afraid of ever new thing. If she couldn't be the best, she kind of didn't
want to try it. Every once in a while she would step out of her comfort zone and try.
But then if she couldn't do it, she might walk away. Decide not to be part of it or
even cry and complain. Make excuses for why she wasn't able to do it. Or didn't want to
do it. She was different. When I looked at the entire group, I realized all of them have
an amount of self confidence. But she only has it on one thing. Not in anything else.
If a person truly is a confident person, then they'll be willing to step out of their comfort
zone and try new things. They don't have to be perfect at something before they ever even
try. So, I would say that even though she was good at her one sport and confident in
her one sport, I would not consider her to be a truly confident person. When I saw the
breakdowns of this girl had, I wondered why doesn't she know how to solve her own problems.
When things seem hard or when it's challenge that she hasn't met before, why does she shut
down instead of step up? I wondered "Has someone pulled her along her whole life just indulging
these types of breakdowns again and again?" And never giving her the skills that she needs
to really conquer these things. Or to really feel confident even if she hasn't been in
the situation before. It could be that her life was never hard. That only these recent
challenges have seemed hard but before that, nothing was hard. People that never get the
opportunity to do hard things often have low self confidence and increased anxiety. I wondered
"Did her overprotect her? Or did they under teach her?" Or was it a combination of both?
This girl clearly did not know how to solve her own problems. Even when something was
shown to be safe by all the other athletes and the trainers, she still was resistant
to try. If people don't posses the skills and the experience that they need for how
to solve their problems, they often shut down. And that's what this poor girl did. She was
darling. Sweet personality, cute girl. Really great at her sport. But she would shut down
a lot. The 3 vital elements for helping children develop self confidence are number 1, having
a tone that instills confidence. That means the parents have a you-can-do-it kind of an
attitude with heir child. "You can do this. I know you're having a hard time with it.
Just do it anyway. Just do it anyway." They don't accept the excuses . They don't accept
the emotions as a sign that there's something wrong. No, they say, "That's an emotion. Let's
move on. It's okay." And the parents take that same tone with everything they do. With
their own parenting they say, "Well, I'm not perfect at this. But this is the direction
I am going. And so, this si what we're going to do." And the children become fearless because
they're parents are fearless. It's a tone in the home culture that then is extended
outside the home culture into all of the things that they try in their lives. Whether at school
or activities or employment. The second vital element for developing self-confidence is
learning the skills for success that you need. There are some basic skills that people don't
know. For instance, let's say you apply for a job and you don't get the job. That's called
a no answer. Are you able to take that? Or are you going to wallow? Are you going to
pout and struggle and sit in your room and soak for a couple of months before you get
the courage to do it again? Hopefully, you can accept a no answer and move on. To accept
a no answer, there's 4 steps that we teach children. You look at the person, you keep
a calm face, voice and body, you say okay or you ask to disagree appropriately and then
you drop the subject. A person that's going to pout in their room is not keeping a calm
face, voice and body and definitely isn't dropping the subject. The 4 basic skills that
we teach which are following instructions, accepting no answers and criticism, accepting
consequences and disagreeing appropriately actually help a child solve almost all, 99%
of all of their problems. It helps them also choose their behaviors instead of fall into
emotional traps that usually are from fear and anxiety. I have other videos on this channel
that go into more detail about those 4 basic skills and how to correct behavioral problems.
So, make sure you're a subscriber so you don't miss those. Vital element number 3 for developing
confidence. Work, work and more work. When a person does not know how to work and get
something done then usually they lack confidence. When we did the BBC program, The World's Strictest
Parents, there were 2 troubled teens that came to our home, they were both 17-years
old. And they both did not know how to work. At first, I thought them how to harvest things
out of my yard. Super simple. "Pull that onion out of the ground." And I remember when they
pull that out the ground, they were like, "Eww, it's so diry. Oh, yuck" And they were
not happy with the process of just pulling one thing out of the ground that would potentially
be there dinner. But as the week went on and we taught them how to do chores and work along
side us, then when they earned extra chores, they would come to me and say, "Come here,
Nicholeen. Come see what I did. I cleaned this whole bathroom. It looks so great. My
mom is going to die. I am going to do this when I get home back to England." That's called
confidence. We taught them how to do a job. They did the job, they showed me the job.
I praised them for the job. They knew they could do something. And they wanted to show
it to the next person. That's called confidence. Hopefully you're children develop that type
of confidence when they're young. Some parents resist giving their children adult chores
and responsibilities. Don't do that. It cripples their confidence. It's not going to help them.
I remember one time when we had a friend of one of my children over for dinner. And I
asks the children if they want to help me make dinner. And this friend said, "Okay.
Yeah, I guess." And every thing I ask them to do like chop a vegetable... By the way,
this friend was 12. Chop a vegetable or stir something on the stove or something like that.
They said, "Oh, I can't do that. I can't be by the stove. It's too dangerous. I can't
use knives. I haven't been taught how to use knives." And I thought, "You're 12." By the
time my children were 6, I was teaching them how to use a knife and proper safety for the
knives. Now, maybe some people may think that's a little extreme. But by the time my children
are in their teens, we're teaching them how to chop wood with an ax ad how to prepare
sprinkling systems and piping in the house and how to put in the garden. In fact, they
start putting in the garden with me as soon as they can walk. Work, work and more work.
Our society has too much easing comfort. Parents want their children to have a good work ethic.
But they don't actually work with their children that often. They recreate with their children
instead. And if you don't work, you cripple them for their lives. They need their self
confidence to develop it, you got to work along side them and give them their own responsibilities.
Now that we've talked about developing self confidence and work and how to get those children
loving work, the video you should watch now is how to make someone feel understood.