Confidence is one of those tricky topics that we are constantly seeing posts about or know that we need to build more of, but it’s hard. It’s elusive, and it can ebb and flow depending on who you are or how you’re feeling that particular day. And we’re speaking about our experience as adults; imagine trying to build confidence and self-reliance as a child in today’s fast-paced, social media-heavy world. It was hard enough trying to survive adolescence in the age before the internet; peer pressure has always existed, and so has the desire to fit in. Now add in millions of different opinions and imagery.
So yeah, it makes sense that kids are struggling nowadays, and parents are noticing. According to research conducted by Carter’s, almost 8 in 10 parents (78 percent) “noticed their child changing what they do, like or choose because they’re worried about what others think,” per a press release. They also found that nearly half (49 percent) of parents shared that “their child changed their appearance for the same reason.”
That’s why Carter’s is teaming up with Good Inside, an online parenting support service that offers tools and resources via its programs and app. These perks include “workshops for every problem” you might face as a parent, examples of scripts to use with your kids for various issues, access to “GiGi” (a Good Inside-trained chatbot) 24/7 and live events with Dr. Becky Kennedy, the CEO and founder of Good Inside.
Together, Carter’s and Good Inside are not only trying to better understand what is impacting children’s confidence so heavily, but also aiming to help give parents the proper knowledge to help their kids out. As part of their Childhood Confidence Project initiative, Carter’s is “unlocking free access” specifically to the Confidence Program on Good Inside’s platform, as well as offering a free three-month membership to Good Inside’s full platform to people who join for a limited time.
Parade spoke with Dr. Becky about the initiative and confidence in kids, in general. Known as just Dr. Becky on Instagram—where she has 3.5 million followers—she is a clinical psychologist and mom of three who made a name for herself by posting helpful parenting advice online that went against the grain of what parents are usually told.
“I mean, I think it is harder than ever to raise confident kids,” she tells us. “And I think in part that’s because it’s never been easier to make kids’ lives easier. Which sounds like a good thing. But confidence actually comes from watching yourself get through and actually be capable of coping with a wide range of tricky situations.”
She adds that because it’s “never been easier to make our kids’ lives easier in the moment,” it’s also “never been harder to raise kids who are confident and resilient and kind of prepared for the range of experiences they’re going to face in the world.” And not only is this due to the world we live in and the technology available to us, but one bit of outdated parenting advice isn’t helping, and Dr. Becky wants parents to avoid falling into its trap.
Read on to find out more about Carter’s and Good Inside’s The Confidence Project initiative, what parents might get wrong when it comes to building kids’ confidence and how to reframe it into self-trust to raise more resilient children.
Related: 7 Habits of a ‘Deeply Feeling’ Child or Grandchild, According to Dr. Becky Kennedy
This Parenting Advice About Children’s Confidence Is Outdated, Dr. Becky Reveals
One piece of outdated parenting advice that doesn’t serve children well when it comes to building confidence is thinking that your main job as a parent is to make your children happy, Dr. Becky tells Parade.
“I think it’s like an operating principle that’s either said or believed, which is that ‘My job is to make my kid happy,’” she states. “I just want to say no. No, because what we end up doing if we try to make our kid happy in childhood is we end up optimizing for fragility and anxiety in adulthood, because childhood is really about what range of situations can I watch myself tolerate and cope with and get through?”
This directly impacts a child’s confidence.
She explains that if you’re just trying to alleviate obstacles and hard feelings for your kids, you’re not allowing them to grow and learn how to combat adversity. So if their confidence is deflated or they feel defeated, you shouldn’t immediately bulldoze over it because then they won’t know how to pick themselves up and face those issues as an adult head-on.
“So I think the shift to that is, as parents often say, ‘Oh, so I want my kid to be unhappy?’ No, obviously we’re not trying to make our kid unhappy. It’s just that there’s actually a lot in between,” Dr. Becky explains. “Let’s help our kids feel like it’s okay to be them, feel capable in the widest range [of emotions]…”
From disappointment to jealousy, to sadness, to feeling less than other people, the psychologist shares that parents need to prepare their kids for these hard emotions. She notes that, of course, she’s speaking about healthy situations and not toxic ones.
“You and I know you’re going to feel those things for the rest of your life,” she states. “You can’t get out of it. It’s just part of being human. So let’s kind of prepare our kid for the road, not prepare the road for our kid.”
Related: The One Feeling a Child Psychologist Wishes Parents Would Stop Trying To ‘Fix’
Why Prioritizing Happiness Backfires When It Comes to a Child’s Confidence
Dr. Becky says that if parents continue to lean into the “I just want to make my child happy” mindset, it really stunts them for adulthood, as mentioned above. If you try to alleviate your child from feeling deflated, you’re not helping them build resilience; instead, you have a child who isn’t capable of discovering they’re more than they thought or learning from failure.
“In [our] early years, the range of situations [we] can deal with is really, really narrow, and then the range of situations in which [we] can be happy, oddly enough, is very, very small,” she shares. “It leads to a shrinking life when our kids get older.”
If kids are never challenged or made to sit in discomfort, they start telling themselves things like, “I’m not going to try out for that team. What if I don’t make it?” or “I’m not going to try out that class. I’m going to be confused.” They stop before they even start anything, because they didn’t grow confidence and resilience as a child.
“You’re never willing to be a beginner and to get good at anything in life,” she says of kids in this mindset. “You actually have to be willing to be bad at it. Meaning, just be new. That’s not confidence. That, again, is a shrinking life and a lot of anxiety and fragility.”
How To Build Real Confidence Through Emotional Tolerance
With social media and instant gratification being the norm (and everywhere we turn), it’s easy to be frustrated at all the parenting advice that exists online; you might want to just go for the first “out” you find as a parent. But Dr. Becky says parents should figure out what confidence really means first, in order to understand how to properly instill it in their children.
“I think we’ve been fed a narrative that confidence is feeling good about yourself, which would make you optimize for your kid feeling good,” she says, which can lead to the outdated “just making your kid happy” advice from above. “I don’t think confidence is feeling good. I actually think confidence is self-trust, and confidence is feeling like it’s okay to be you even when things don’t feel good.”
Again, we live in a fast-paced, information-heavy world that “is so loud” and “constantly” puts us “in reaction mode,” she states. And while there’s nothing “inherently the problem with that,” she points out that it does mean our minds really don’t get moments to reflect.
“We used to have times when, instead of reaction mode, which is a way of gazing out, we actually had time to gaze in,” she notes.
When we—including our children—are constantly looking at photos of friends, following them on a Snap Map or devouring information 24/7, it’s hard to get a clear picture of what you want, what you actually like and what you care about without all of that noise.
“It’s hard to answer those questions, but if we don’t have any quiet anymore… It shouldn’t be a surprise that our kids have much less of a sense of self and almost start to define themselves outside in,” Dr. Becky says, adding that it’s “dangerous” to go into your adult years, “when the stakes get really high,” if you don’t have a strong sense of self.
If you teach your child to trust in themselves and be self-assured, peer pressure doesn’t hit the same. Trying to fit in with what’s trending on social media doesn’t impact their appearance as much. They can respect what their friends are doing, but they have enough self-trust and confidence in themselves to not change their morals, outlook or personality. It also means kids can come out of tough situations and failure with their self-worth intact, which is a priceless skill in adulthood.
“It’s kind of our ability to separate ‘This thing doesn’t feel good’ from ‘I am still good,’” Dr. Becky tells Parade. “And if we think about confidence as trusting yourself, as our ability to feel like it’s okay to be us in the widest range of situations, we would actually start intervening in a very different way.”
She states that parents should start to think of difficult situations—like their child not making the team or not being with their best friend in class—as confidence-building moments. There might be “a lot of whining,” and they “aren’t going to be fun or enjoyable,” but you “don’t want to snatch them away” from your child. And helping parents see all of that is really what helps Dr. Becky continue doing what she does.
“The idea that we could help parents see those moments differently, intervene differently, and then end up actually helping our kids become the type of kids, teens, adults I think we all want our kids to become. The idea that I could be part of that? Yeah, I mean, you could see it’s just what lights me up the most inside,” she shares.
Related: People With ‘Quiet Confidence’ Often Use These 17 Phrases, According to Psychologists
Dr. Becky on ‘The Childhood Confidence Project’ from Carter’s and Good Inside
Dr. Beck says that she loves “translating ideas into insanely practical, manageable, reasonable things real parents can do in their real life.” And when Carter’s spoke with Dr. Becky and her team at Good Inside about this Confidence Project initiative, she says they “felt equally strong” about it all. Which is why the Confidence Program on Good Inside’s platform is completely free.
“Given how stressful the world is and how expensive the world is and how much still, with all of that, people really care about raising good, capable, confident kids. We thought, what an amazing thing to just give these doable, practical resources to as many parents as possible,” she shares.
She stresses that they want to “make it easy” to help raise confident children, because everyone is dealing with so many real pressures and issues already as it is. So Carter’s and Dr. Becky knew that it couldn’t just be a program to help parents; they had to “acknowledge the reality of the world and the financial reality of parenthood.” That’s how important they believe it is, and it’s something Dr. Becky is “really proud” to release.
She said that there is “no catch,” and the Confidence Program on Good Inside is all yours to use; you only have to enter your email. Plus again, for a limited time, anyone can sign up for Good Inside’s membership for three months, free of charge, to unlock the rest of the parenting support tools and resources they have. Regularly—and after those free three months are done—Good Inside costs $84 for three months ($28 per month), or $279 for the year ($23.25 per month).
And Dr. Becky welcomes any and all feedback—even those that disagree with what she’s sharing.
“I love to hear from people. I don’t think I figured it all out. I love ideas more than I love being right. I love questions more than answers; I really do,” she states. “So if you’re doing anything, you’re like, ‘Hold on, what about this?’ or ‘I don’t know, I disagree’ is the opposite of offensive to me. That’s what lights me up, because I get to think a new thought. And I can’t think new thoughts without people’s feedback. So bring it on. I love learning from you too, and we’re really in this together.”
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Source:
Dr. Becky Kennedy, known to millions as Dr. Becky, is a clinical psychologist, mom of three, as well as the founder and CEO of Good Inside, a parenting support ecosystem. Through her app, New York Times bestselling books, viral social media presence and chart-topping podcast, she has inspired a generation of cycle-breakers to join a parenting revolution, helping them become sturdy, confident leaders so they can raise sturdy, confident kids.Hence then, the article about dr becky says this parenting advice about confidence in kids is outdated here s why was published today ( ) and is available on Parade ( Saudi Arabia ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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