Rèn cho con tính tự tin (bản tiếng Anh)

Đây là khuyến nghị của chính phủ Singapore (bản tiếng Anh gốc) nhằm giúp các bậc cha mẹ tạo cho con cái mình sự tự tin:

1. Keep an overall positive atmosphere in your family

you need to show your own self-confidence. To make your family a nice, pleasant, relaxed place to live in, show respect and appreciation for each other. Everybody benefits from the positive attention he receives.

- Take the initiative to do things for others to show that you care about them.

- Thank them for the things that they have done for you

- Give simple, short praises to others for their positive qualities.

2. Get involved in your child's life

the more you are involved in your child's activities, the more you understand his strengths & weaknesses and the more opportunities you have to give him emotional suppport, encouragement and guidance. Find time to ask him about his school life, such as schoolmates, teachers, schoolwork & co-curricular activities (CCAs). Talk to him about his interest, concerns, dreams & ambitions. When he gives a performance, do your best to attend.

3. Help your child learn from his mistake positively

to help your child handle his feeling of failure, use the following guidlines:

- Avoid perfectionism: perfectionists are usually unhappy because their self-confidence depends so much on how other people look at them

- Teach optimism: optimism is having confidence in life. When your are optimistic, you feel that there is more good than bad in life. You also believe that problems are solvable. Tell your child about some of your past setbacks, how you were troubled and how you persisted to successfully deal with the challenges.

4. Separate a troublesome behaviour from your child

when you correct a troublesome behaviour in your child, do the following:

- Pinpoint that behaviour

- Say that it is the behaviour that is the problem, not him as a person

- Help him find ways to overcome or control that habit

5. Grow healthy thoughts in your child

your child's mind is like a garden where different thoughts grow. Using the following chart as a reference, you can build your child's self-confidence by doing the following seven actions:

- tell your child that what he says inside his head can make him feel good or bad

- tell him examples of "feel good" and "feel bad" thoughts

-when your child fails at something & seems discouraged, ask him what he is saying to himself inside his head

- ask him to check and see if these are "feel good" or "feel bad" thoughts

- encourge him to think more of the "feel good" thoughts

"feel bad" & "feel good" thoughts

Feel bad:

- I'm not good enough

- I'm stupid

- I'm ugly

- I'm useless

- Nobody likes me

- there's nothing I can do about the problem now

- they just want to boss me around

- they are so unfair

- I will always have this problem

Feel good (think of as many examples as possible)

- I do well at different things

- I can work this out

- I do like some parts of me

- I'm capable of doing many things well

- Some people do like me

- I don't have to give up. Let me try again

- I can co-operate & get what I need

- I can't control what they do, but I can control what I do

- Things will change sooner or later

- I can try to make it better

-when he suceeds at something and feel good about himself, ask too, what he is saying in his mind about himself.

- encourage him to remember and repeat these "feel good" thoughts

6. Teach your child problem-solving skills

after your child makes a mistake, pay attention to the following three principles:

* talk with him about any feelings of regret that he could be having. For example, think about the people whose feeling he might have hurt

* be patient. Instead of rushing to solve his problem for him, encourage him to seek help from you if he ever needs it

* guide him to think about what he could or should have done differently, so that he would know how to handle a similar situation in the future. You can use the following five question:

- "at that time, what did you really want?"

- "looking back, what other ways could you think of to get that?" & "what else?"

- "looking back, what do you think you should have done (instead of what you did)?"

- "next time, what will you do differently?"

- "what do you need to do now?" (for instance, apologising to someone)

7. Celebrate your child's sucess

there is nothing more satisfying to a child than getting his parents' approval & feeling their pride in his abilities

AVOID:

- highlighting your child's mistakes too much. Constant reminders of the past mistakes would only hurt his self-confidence

- overlooking your child's success. Small praises from you would add up slowly build up his self-confidence

trích từ Essential Parenting Tips