How to Raise a Confident Boy

When you are raising boys, you think a lot about how to teach them to respect women, explain sex and puberty, and go over the basics of personal responsibility. When your boys are younger, you teach them how to walk, talk, write, read, play, and share. As boys get older, the focus is more on doing chores and doing their school work. However, don't forget to teach your boys to be confident.

Confidence and self-esteem is built in the home first, so as his parent, it is up to you to make sure he feels good about himself, and he will be a happier and more well-adjusted child. This in turn allows your son to be honest, loyal, and kind to others.

Here are some tips on how to raise a confident boy.

Before getting into how to raise a son who is more confident, it helps to understand why it is so essential. Here are some different reasons why you need to constantly build up your son's confidence throughout the different stages of his life.

He will be happier.

Plain and simple, confident boys are happier boys. They feel good about themselves and their accomplishments, which makes them well-adjusted, delightful, and happy children. This is really all a parent wants in her child. Let your child enjoy his life by raising his confidence.

It raises his self-worth.

Building confidence in your son can also raise his self-worth. This gives him excellent self-esteem and makes him feel like his life has value.

He will have less social anxiety.

A lot of social anxiety in children stems from feeling like they aren't good enough or can't compare to others. If your son feels more confident in himself and his own abilities, his social anxiety won't be as bad.

Your son will be motivated.

You want your son to be more motivated in general, to want to try harder and learn new things. This is yet another important benefit you get from making sure he is confident.

Confidence in boys (and girls) starts when they are babies. The method of parenting is one you can choose on your own, but it has been shown that attachment parenting for babies makes them feel secure, which can then increase their sense of value as they get older.

Attachment parenting often includes wearing your baby often, paying attention to their cues and breastfeeding immediately, and spending a good portion of your baby's life right there beside them.

Even if attachment parenting isn't your personal method of parenting, you can get some good tips from this type of parenting. The more time, love, and attention you give to your baby during his first few months of life, the more valued and special he is going to feel.

Continue with this type of parenting from the time your son is born until he starts paying attention to the time and attention you give him, and it will naturally increase his own personal self-confidence.

This early nurturing is important for babies and toddlers to feel love from their parents. So don't be afraid that you cuddle too much or want to spend all your time with your son; this is a good thing and can actually help him be a better person in the future.

As your son starts to get older, a lot of his self confidence comes from what he sees, not always what he is told. Children are big observers, even when you don't realize they are watching.

They are going to take cues from their parents, older siblings, and other people in their life that they look up to. As their parent, it is up to you to show that you are confident about yourself, teaching your son it is okay to model this same behaviour.

It can be hard to keep saying good things about yourself and showing your son that you are a confident person with high self-esteem. This behaviour is sometimes looked at like you are being conceited, but what you are doing is teaching your son it is okay to be proud of your accomplishments.

If you do something good, bring it up and allow others to praise you. This doesn't mean you are talking about your good qualities 24/7, but that you are taking full advantage of those moments when you believe you shined, and when you think your son and other children can learn a valuable lesson from it.

There are going to be moments when you don't like how you look, you feel like you could have tried harder during a project, or you straight-up made a big mistake and feel really bad about it. While it is okay to let your son see that you notice your flaws and where you could have done things differently, don't focus on them.

Never mention that you don't like your own appearance or show that you are obviously upset by something you did wrong. This is only going to teach your son he should feel this way about every failure in his life.

There is a delicate balance between offering your son compliments and praise for things he has done well, and giving a little bit too much praise to where when he does fail, it hits him harder than it should have.

Kids, and boys especially, need to understand that mistakes will happen. You don't want to always praise only their best work, but their efforts.

The reason too much praise can sometimes keep your son from succeeding as much as possible is because it might set the bar too low.

When you tell your son after his first attempt that is doing an amazing job and it is perfect how it is, he believes that is the only result he will get. It makes him feel like he doesn't need to keep trying harder, because he is already doing something perfectly.

This is why when praising, you should focus more on encouragement. Tell him it was a really good effort, but that with a little more, you believe in him and know he can be amazing.

You also want to show your son it is okay to do something well, but also to want to try again. Part of praising your son means telling him he did a good job, but as mentioned previously, really focusing on the effort he put into it.

If you praise him by telling him he made a good effort, he knows that what you really liked was how hard he tried, so he keeps wanting to try harder.

There are times when offering your son a lot of praise is entirely appropriate and recommended. For example, when your son tries something new and succeeds, definitely praise his efforts. Also praise him if he has tried something multiple times then finally gets the result he was hoping for.

Raising a son with self-confidence means you are letting him try new things. While it can be a scary concept because you can't guarantee how it will turn out, you should also try to encourage him to take some risks.

Of course, this is in healthy and safe new things, but definitely give him the opportunity to take some safe risks.

Just because your son excels in one area, doesn't mean he can't also try and succeed at other things. Part of allowing your son to be more confident, is showing that he can do many things well.

Give him the chance to really try a lot of different things until he finds what makes him feel good about himself. Give him encouragement to try new things and see what else he is good at, whether he is great at math, good at reading, or exceptional at building things.

This is often difficult for parents to do because you want your son to learn the right way to do things. However, there are times when it is better for his growth and development to take a step back and let him figure out things on his own.

If your toddler has spilled milk on the floor, give him a moment to figure out what to do next. Let him decide that he needs to clean it up instead of playing with the spilled milk or ignoring it.

If you keep doing this, one day he will remember you clean up spills, and that he is capable of doing the same thing. No matter what age your son is, there are moments when it is best to let him solve a problem on his own. He will feel immense satisfaction at his accomplishment, which does wonders for a child's confidence.

In addition to letting your son try new things, also encourage him to find his own hobbies and passions in life. This is another way to build his confidence. You are letting him explore things he might be interested in, not just what he is good at. When he finds something that is a true passion of his that he thoroughly enjoys, it really helps him feel good about himself every time he participates in this activity.

For example, your son may find that when choosing video games, he really likes games like Minecraft. This game actually can teach your son a lot, so by letting him explore something he really enjoys, you are actually letting him learn tons of important lessons. Minecraft can help him learn the basics of building, what is required to find or create items to build something from scratch, engages him, lets him choose and finish a goal, and allows him to be more creative.

Let your son try new things, be creative, and explore his many talents and abilities. By doing this, he will be happy and motivated, and will grow up to be a strong and confident man.