Confident Children: Help children feel good about themselves
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Gael Lindenfield. Confident Children: Help children feel good about themselves
Confident. Children. help children feel good about themselves
Dedication
Contents
List of Exercises
Introduction
Who is this book for?
What this book offers
How to use this book
Introduction to this Revised Edition
Chapter One What exactly is confidence? Everything you need to know
What is inner confidence?
Self-love
Self-knowledge
Clear goals
Positive thinking
What is outer confidence?
Communication
Assertiveness
Self-presentation
Emotional control
What is super confidence?
How is confidence acquired and lost? Nature or nurture?
The 8 ‘nutrients’ children need
Chapter Two How to become a good-enough parent. More saint, less sinner!
The 7 ‘saintly’ characteristics of perfect parents
The 7 ‘sinful’ characteristics of ‘not good-enough’ parents
Step 1: Become acquainted. with your ‘auto-parent’
Step 2: Become aware of. your wounded inner child
Exercise: Discovering my auto-parent
Step 3 – Give some attention. to your own dreams and desires
Exercise: Sabotaging behaviours of my inner child
Exercise: Recovering my dreams
Step 4 – Increase your knowledge about child care and development
1 Do you have adequate knowledge about child health issues?
2 Do you need to know more about education?
3 Do you know enough about behaviour difficulties?
4 Do you know where to go for professional help if you or your child needs it?
5 Have you enough knowledge on social dangers which your child might encounter?
Exercise: Action plan to upgrade my knowledge
Step 5 – Improve your. ability to manage stress
Exercise: My stress warning signals
Physical signs of stress
Emotional signs of stress
Mental signs of stress
Behavioural signs of stress
Exercise: Action plan for stress prevention
Chapter Three Providing a helpful environment. Confidence at home
Preparing your home
Make your home safe and secure
Encourage your child’s independence
Stimulate talents and interests
Encourage a sense of belonging
Give your child privacy
Exercise: Home-check
Chapter Four Your family life. Does it hinder or help?
1 Objectives and goals – are they. shared and explicit?
2 Values – are they shared or conflicting?
3 Rules – are they commonly accepted. and made explicit?
4 Roles and responsibilities – are they clear and just?
5 Communication – is it effective and sufficient?
6 The outside world – do you have enough contact with it?
Exercise: Family check-over
Chapter Five Building self-esteem. Help your children to love themselves
What you can do to build. children’s self-esteem
Say that you love them
Explain why you like them
Emphasize the unconditional nature of your love and care
Share the positive effects your children have on your life
Regularly meet them on their level
Encourage self-care and self-nurturing
Discourage self-put-downs
Let yourself be helped – especially by your children’s strengths
Demonstrate your trust by not intervening
Prove that you care by being generous with your ‘quality time’
Apportion your time according to each individual’s needs
Be protective and angry on their behalf when they meet injustice
Choose your words carefully
Language that can diminish self-esteem
Labelling
Amateur psychologist
Distancing
Comparisons
Exaggerating
Using age as a taunt
Patronizing
Sarcasm
Guilt-inducing
Prophecizing
Language that can boost self-esteem
Sharing positive feeling
Specifying appreciation
Recognition of effort and achievement
Conveying unconditional acceptance
Confirming trust
Exercise: Building self-esteem
Chapter Six Developing good self-knowledge. Help your children to get to know themselves
Get to know your child yourself
Discuss, challenge, listen and argue
Encourage risk-taking which will. test their potential
Give specific compliments and positive feedback
Give direct, honest and specific criticism
Do-
Encourage awareness of feeling
Use drama, art and games. to increase self-awareness
Teach self-evaluation
Exercise: Helping my children to get to know themselves
Chapter Seven Setting goals. Help your children to reach for their stars
Children’s goals and targets
Exercise: My children’s goals
Chapter Eight Thinking positively. Negative thinking is a bad habit – help your children to kick it!
Ways to help your children think positively. Mornings
Bedtime
Self-talk
Generalizations
Exaggerations
Exclusions
Predictions
Exercise: Encouraging positive thinking
Part Three How to improve your child’s outer confidence
Chapter Nine Good communication and self-presentation. Learning the essential skills
How children can become. natural conversationalists
How children can become. skilful debaters
How children can become. confident public speakers
The three golden ‘Ps’ of public speaking
Practised
Preparation
Positive
Self-presentation
Exercise: Improving communication and presentation
Chapter Ten Assertiveness. Helping your children to find their voices
Aggressive, passive and assertive styles. Aggressive
Passive
Assertive
Teach them their rights
My Rights
Teach them how to ask effectively. for what they want
The broken record
Teach them that compromise is OK
Teach them to give and take. compliments assertively
Giving compliments. Checklist of unassertive habits
Teach them how to give and take. constructive criticism
How to give criticism assertively
How to receive criticism assertively
Fogging. A technique for coping with unfair or unwanted criticism
Exercise: Encouraging assertiveness
Chapter Eleven Children and emotions. Helping them to manage their feelings
Awareness of feelings
What can we do?
The right to feel emotion
What can we do?
Articulating feelings
How can we help?
Taking responsibility for feelings
How can we help?
Releasing feelings
What can we do?
Controlling emotions
What can we do?
Using a guided fantasy. Purpose
How to do it
Example
Exercise: Managing feelings
Chapter Twelve Positive problem-solving. Dealing with difficulties constructively
1 Maintaining a positive attitude
2 Keeping our involvement appropriate
3 Being supportive
4 Teaching problem-solving strategies
START: A problem-solving strategy for children
Speak
Think
Act
Review
Treat
Examples of how to use the START strategy
Problem A: Underachievement
Speak
Think
Act
Review
Treat
Problem B: Being Teased for Wearing Glasses
Speak
Think
Act
Review
Treat
Problem C: Anxiety Following Bereavement
Speak
Think
Act
Review
Treat
Problem D: Loneliness and Social Isolation
Speak
Think
Act
Review
Treat
Exercise: Problem-solving
Chapter Thirteen Dealing with conflict. If you want confident children, you have to deal with the conflict!
How to maintain a conducive atmosphere
How to manage a crisis!
Keeping control of anger
Distance
Ground
Tension
Breathe
Avoiding punishment
Postponing resolution
Stating needs and giving choices
Just negotiations
Exercise: Dealing with conflict
Chapter Fourteen The flight to the outside world. Giving your children the confidence to survive on their own
Be an inspiring model
Widen the horizon
Handle separations positively
Give them information. and skills for independence
Further Reading
Cassettes
Index
The Laura Lindenfield Foundation
Acknowledgements
By the Same Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Отрывок из книги
Gael Lindenfield
Tragically, in 1996, Laura was killed in a car accident at the age of 19. In her memory, Gael and her family set up a foundation (The Laura Lindenfield Foundation) to help young people find and follow an achievable life-dream.
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Perhaps this kind of philosophy was in part responsible for his sons’ problems in finding personal peace, in spite of their considerable skills in the area of outer confidence. I have met very many outwardly successful people who have also learned to behave in such a cool, controlled manner that you would find it hard to believe that they are secretly wasting a lot of precious time and energy worrying about whether they will be liked or loved, whether they will be able to ‘do it’ or ‘say it’, wondering whether they have made ‘the perfect decision’ or kicking themselves for having hurt the feelings of an aggressive bully.
In contrast, there are also children who may be full of inner confidence but fail to communicate their strengths to the rest of the world. Others may never know how clear and strong the beliefs and ideas of such people actually are, because they are rarely proffered, and these people may never be given the ‘plum opportunities’ which they know they deserve, simply because their presence is hardly noticed. And, because they have never learned how to make the best use of their inner confidence, they continually under-achieve and may subsequently become bored, disheartened and depressed.
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