Children today face more and more pressure to succeed and compete from an early age. As parents and foster carers, it’s important to nurture self-confidence in kids while teaching them healthy attitudes about competition. Here are some tips to help raise confident, well-adjusted children.
Focus on Effort Over Outcomes
Praising your child for effort, rather than results, helps them develop what Carol Dweck calls a growth mindset. This mindset encourages children to believe that abilities can be improved with effort and persistence.
When you emphasise hard work over outcomes, children learn resilience and understand that challenges are opportunities for growth. Instead of linking their self-worth to achievements, celebrate their dedication and commitment to tasks. This approach helps them enjoy learning and reduces fear of failure.
Model Healthy Competitiveness
Children often mimic the behaviours they observe in adults. According to Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory, kids learn through observation, so it’s vital to model healthy attitudes toward competition. Show them that competition can be fun and constructive by emphasising sportsmanship, not winning at all costs.
Celebrate their participation and teach them to be gracious in both victory and defeat, discussing what they can learn from each experience. This approach teaches them how to handle competitive situations in a balanced way.
Children often emulate their caregivers. Model friendly competition by emphasising sportsmanship and having fun, focus on the positives of their performance and improvements, and not the loss. Avoid trash talking or gloating, or being overly negative on other people. Demonstrate losing graciously and discuss how to learn from losses. Your example shows children how to compete in a healthy way.
Encourage Trying New Things
Offering opportunities to try new activities builds confidence and helps children explore their interests. According to Angela Duckworth’s research on grit, developing perseverance in multiple activities helps children push through challenges.
For foster children, especially, trying new things can help build confidence and provide a sense of belonging, even after the disruption of entering a new home. Foster carers at organisations like orangegrovefostercare.co.uk emphasise this as a way to nurture self-esteem and independence.
Allow Minor Failures
Let your child experience small, manageable failures. Angela Duckworth also emphasises that resilience and grit are developed through overcoming setbacks. When children face the consequences of forgetting their homework or missing a play date, they learn to navigate difficulties independently. This builds problem-solving skills, self-reliance, and resilience.
Offer Process Praise
Compliment your child’s strategies, effort and improvement. Saying “You worked so hard to memorise your lines!” motivates better than “You were an amazing actor!” which implies fixed ability. Praising process makes kids feel in control of outcomes through hard work.
Avoid Excessive Comparisons
Resist comparing your child to siblings, classmates or friends. Comments like “why can’t you get grades like…” is damaging. Each child is unique and develops at their own pace. Comparisons breed insecurity. Instead, focus on your child’s individual progress.
Build Self-Worth Beyond Achievements
To raise confident children, it’s crucial to help them develop self-worth that isn’t tied solely to academic or athletic accomplishments. Martin Seligman’s work on Positive Psychology encourages parents to focus on qualities like kindness, empathy, and integrity, reminding children that they are valuable for who they are, not just what they achieve. By encouraging diverse interests and nurturing qualities outside of competition, children develop a healthier sense of self-worth.
Let Children Solve Problems
Give your child space to resolve peer conflicts, workload stress or disagreements themselves. Guide them to think through solutions rather than intervening directly. According to Deci and Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory, children who are given autonomy and space to make decisions develop a stronger sense of competence. Encourage them to think through solutions themselves, providing guidance when necessary but resisting the urge to fix every issue.
Find Non-Competitive Activities
Enrol your child in non-competitive activities like recreation sports, coding classes or drama. Emphasise enjoying the activity itself over winning. Positive environments with less pressure help children develop talents without the focus on outperforming peers.
Reassure During Setbacks
If your child performs poorly on a test or loses a competition, provide emotional support. Reassure them that one failure doesn’t define them. Discuss what they can change moving forward while reiterating your unconditional love. Children need reassurance to bounce back from setbacks.
The path to raising confident, resilient children contains many small stepping stones. Keep the focus on effort over outcome, praise the process, and nurture interests outside of academics and achievements. Your support and guidance as a parent or foster carer has an immense impact on developing healthy attitudes that will serve kids well through life’s ups and downs.
