Best Practices for Building Confidence and Self-Worth with Children
Bravo! You're here, looking at the ways to step up your relationship with your child. Perhaps you got here because you've gotten the card in the Parents Category expansion or by searching the site or your browser. Regardless, this below list will provide a framework guide for conscious parenting and inform on the basic aspects of healthy parent-child relational development.
Attention -- Are you doing your P.A.R.T with your child? Being fully present, attuning yourself into their state, resonating with and validating their experience, builds trust and confidence with your child. This also includes curiosity about their interests, questions, and understanding of the world as they grow and develop perspectives on their world, spending time with them for no particular reason, noticing and responding to their moods, listening to them, understanding things from their perspective.
Basic Hygiene -- this includes routines for care including brushing teeth, regular bathing, combing hair, maintaining clean clothing and bedsheets etc.
Basic Life Skills -- managing a checkbook, paying the bills, upkeep of the car and home, verbalizing feelings and emotions
Being Cherished -- delighting in and appreciating your child, taking joy in their presence in the world.
Consistency -- children thrive on structure and predictability. Do you: keep your word. Do your kids know what they can count on from you? Does life have a predictable rhythm? Is there fear around being able to earn a living / provide for the household discussed in front of the child/ren?
Encouragement of our Child's Talents -- acknowledgement and validation of their natural abilities and superpowers but also encouraging them through their vulnerabilities as well.
Nurturing -- hugs and cuddles, considerate and compassionate talk, validating their emotions and experiences, being gentle and understanding
Protection -- from hostile behaviors of abuse, siblings, the outside world, one another.
Respect of Boundaries -- honoring your child's privacy, protecting your child's right to say no and express themselves without rejection or judgement.
Unconditional Love -- loving your child without needing them to perform in return, loving them without imposing your unfulfilled needs on to them.