How can you boost your children’s confidence?

When you feel confident you feel you can do more, when you lack confidence you subconsciously hold yourself back, and this is the same for children. To enable them to reach their full potential through their developmental ages and right the way through to adulthood, we need to nurture their self belief and confidence and make them feel good about themselves. Self esteem I believe to be a childs passport for life: It will allow them to live with a positive attitude, a will to try, to succeed, to live healthily , with self belief and respect for others. Even more importantly is, a healthy self esteem will encourage them to strive socially, intellectually, physically and grow into well-rounded and happy people!!

Gok Wan is helping our teens feel good about their bodies and self esteem which is great, but where is the help for our toddlers, pre schoolers and primary ages. As this is the most crucial when you think that this is their developmental age! Where they learn about themselves and others around them.

The best ways to promote confidence is through:

· Making your baby/child feel loved and valued with affection and love.

· Be a good role model , be confident, positive and happy yourself.

· Give quality time to each child. Play with them, read with them,etc

· Help your child realise their talents. Develop these talents and applaud their strengths

· Give your child responsibilities. Their own special jobs within the home. So they see they are an asset to a group.

· Encourage your child to be expressive and show their feelings. Releasing inhibitions is a great way to tackle low self esteem and will develop confidence. Communication skills and socialisation will become second nature to a child whom expresses their own feelings.

· Do not give your child attachment issues, show your baby/child that they are safe cuddling other people and not just mum and dad.

All of this can be achieved through the creative arts! Here are some ideas of what and where!!

· Reading creative books with your children is a great method for boosting self esteem and confidence. It gives you and your child quality time together which will make them feel special. It is allowing a child to learn words and language. It will improve your childs reading skills and will also allow conversation and feelings to be discussed in relation to the topic in the book. If you choose a book that is fun but also targets the issue of being brave, being confident, trying your best, not giving up etc a child will take that onboard. To help your child boost their self esteem and confidence I recommend the The Magic Sunglasses . This wonderful book written by Auriel Blanche discusses this very theme and there is also a workshop and interactive website to help children and parents dealing with esteem. www.themagicsunglasses.com

· Join baby toddler groups, these are great for social interaction. Musical toddler and baby groups are ideal. They allow children to be creative and have fun in a safe and relaxed environment. At the same time as building confidence and self esteem, they explore the musical instruments, nursery rhymes and action songs. Through doing so they learn to build the co-ordination skills, develop physically, socially and emotionally. A music class encourages interaction with other children, group activities, socialising, joining in and sharing. It also allows them to express themselves and a fun way to escape to a fun musical world away from the worries them may have. They may make friends and learn musical talents aswell. All in all they will feel valued as part of a group, gain self esteem and happiness as they are applauded for getting actions right, knowing the songs, playing the instruments and playing the games.It is also quality time with their parents so they will feel special. One I recommend is Musical Minis, they are all over the country . http://www.musicalminis.co.uk

Childrens Reading Groups

As you all know by now, I love charities and organisations that are helping to inspire children to love and enjoy reading! Companies that have a motivation for helping the children of the nation to be highly educated and inspired children with fantastic literacy skills , communication skills, social skills and a respect for themselves and others.

Now another one I would like to shout about is Chatterbooks. This is run by The Reading Agency and has been set up for children aged between 8-11 . The aim is to get children fired up and excited about reading. They have won awards for its national network of reading groups aimed at children. The groups all incorporate fun and creativity within the story reading and discussions.

Reading for pleasure has a profound effect on individuals and communites , so chatterbooks can be organised for schools, libraries , clubs , or anywhere which it can be used.

Chatterbooks Reads is run in collaboration with Children's Reading Partners.

Chatterbooks Reads aims:
* to introduce children to the best new writing and expand their reading horizons
* to help parents make informed reading choices for their children
* to enhance libraries' promotion of current children's literature

Chatterbooks has quizzes, games and activities related to the books to encourage children to discuss issues in the book, to communicate and develop socially with the literature being at the heart of the chattering!

There are about 550 chatterbook groups across the UK, with some 8500 children aged 4-12 taking part. If you would like to learn more… or hold a chatterbooks event please view the website. http://readinggroups.org/chatterbooks/

Another reading book club to mention is the magic sunglasses. www.themagicsunglasses.com - an ideal reading group and book to encourage self esteem , self confidence and understanding of each individual having true special talents…

Written by Kaley Herrick ,researcher of child development related to the creative arts.

Are our children being damaged by the ‘online age’? Or is there a wealth of development to be found?

We are constantly told by the press that in today’s day and age family life is in the decline and that our parents are career focused and too busy to offer the support, motivation and encouragement that is needed to bring up happy, intelligent and self motivated children. We are told that parents damage their children’s brains by sitting them in front of the TV or computers every evening and weekend. With this, we are led to believe that we have intolerant, celebrity obsessed, social network crazed , violent children in the modern world!! But lets turn this around, lets paint a different picture, one which I believe to be much more promising for our children’s future.

I still see children playing and laughing in the parks, I still see children being ambitious, trying new things, joining classes , interacting at school, socializing in the ‘real world’ , surely the internet just adds to the many bows to our children’s strings. Lets give tour children and our parents some credit – the internet andcomputers etc are in our culture now. I suggest maybe some people anti-internet do not like change. Ofcourse like most things related to children – a safety aspect and a need for ground rules is paramount. The internet has a wealth of information – much that is not suitable for a child. As long as this is monitered the internet has a wealth of positivity to offer children, opportunities that we adults didn’t have the fortune of having.

The internet gives children access to information that will improve educational attainment . It also helps children socially! There is no evidence that children REPLACE actual socialization with virtual. On the internet children have the opportunity to engage with a larger group of people both virtually and in real life. The internet can also provide entertainment – the internet offers a world of possibilities to a child at their finger tips – it can offer inspiration, can stimulate imagination , help children explore the world in a second , they can gain new experiences, learn new things and learn about themselves – what they like, etc. When children are online they are thinking, reading, analyzing, creating opinions and using their brains. None of this is ever documented as the media like to portray all the negatives!!

According to http://www.verdick.org there are other positive factors for children using the internet; Physical development, cognitive development and social development. They suggest the use of the internet offers better hand to eye co-ordination, and improvement of fine motor skills due to using the mouse and keyboard. They also say “Children who use the Internet show gains in cognitive abilities such as memory, spatial and logical problem solving, critical thinking, concentration, abstraction and comprehension. The Internet exposes children to information to improve the quality of learning that they can transform into knowledge. Through the use of the Internet, children’s language and literacy development is often promoted, allowing for greater gains in verbal and nonverbal skills.”

Ofcourse there are other risks with the internet , it can be a minefield with spams, spontaneous pop-ups, cyber bullying etc. But as long as these things are monitored and parental restrictions put in place these issues can be controlled.

A recent survey conducted by consumer research firm Intersperience suggested that 60% of children aged between 12 and 16 would be "sad" without a web connection, while 48% said they would be lonely.

A poll conducted for Safer Internet Day by BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat found that only 6% of 13-19-year-olds were likely to accept a friends request from someone they did not know, while 69% said that they understood how to change their Facebook privacy settings. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16836318

Maybe we are not giving our children enough credit, children have internet in their lives and it is only going to develop, lets embrace it with care but be open to the opportunities it gives our children that is beneficial to their development – far beyond what we had.

We could always help our children by choosing a good website for them to view. Try the Magic Sunglasses if you are looking for a good positive start . www.themagicsunglasses.com

Written by Kaley Herrick ,researcher of child development related to the creative arts.