Confidence Boosters

Confidence Boosters

We all want our children to be confident, some kids seem to have it, some have a little to much of it and others, well the don't seem to have any.

For those with little or none life can be difficult, Shy introverted timid children are often the first to

be bullied and so the escalation of lack of confidence to lack of self esteem begins.

So how can we give confidence to those who lack it?

I thought it might be helpful to give you my definition of confidence

As I see it, confidence is a feeling of certainty that an individual holds over the ability to cope with any given situation. So a child can feel confident (and so have peace of mind) with the family cat but be terrified in the park near dogs. I get  a child being wary of other dogs may be a desirable thing, but not terror.

Well if confidence is just a feeling of certainty, how can you get your child to feel it?



Step 1 Use their BODY

Have you ever noticed how people with a head ache stand or sit? They position their head  in a downwards position with it slightly tilted to one side with their palm across there fore head and let the muscles in their face go slack, You don't need to ask them what's wrong, you know.

If you want to get a head ache that's a great way to get one you just sit in the head ache position for a while, your body will give your brain the message and hey presto, you feel dreadful.

Well confidence has its body position too. When you stand with your shoulders back, with your head slightly elevated eyes forward and open wide, your feet shoulder width apart arms folder across your chest or even hands on hips, you know the superman position. (there's a reason he stands like that - he's portraying someone with  ultimate confidence). You can't help but start to feel confident.
Play the Superman game!



Step 2 Use their BREATH

How a child breathes at any given time determines  how they feel, in fact not breathing for a while can have serious consequences for you, like being dead, so your body and brain react extremely quickly to poor breathing patterns, how to you breathe when you are upset or crying, most people sob and take shallow weak breathes,

Your body starts to understand there is less oxygen coming in and starts to shut things down, no wonder they feel lousy. Teach you child to breathe properly, partially when they feel uncertain, it helps their physiology and that helps with confidence, You hear coaches say just take a deep breathe and go for it!



Step 3 Use their BRAIN

What stories are you telling yourself, what pictures are you putting into your head? What do you expect to happen in any given situation, what is your inner voice telling you? Do you talk to yourself in a disgraceful manner, you would never talk to anyone else that way.

You say things to yourself like "I can't do that, it could all go wrong, I'm not good enough". Your child may well be doing the same thing. So how you and your child control your thoughts and what you focus on is essential, and its essential for your child as well.

Now its this focus that children can struggle with, for their expectations come from their previous experience  and if they have little or no previous experience in dealing with a given situation their brain may refer back to the last time they were faced with a similar unknown challenge. If they previously met the last challenge and were positively rewarded, a new challenging situation will hold much less uncertainty than for a child whose last challenge ended in disaster, humiliation or punishment.

So keep things positive, re-enforce when they have done well or at least attempted to do well. If they are Eight years old you can tell them that even a Nine year old couldn't have done that well. Positive messages sink in and create a can do attitude. Teach them that we all have naughty little inner gremlins which whisper negative thoughts into our ear, but we don't have to listen to them.


So can you really give your child confidence? 

Yes of course in the opposite way to which you could destroy it.
Introducing your child to incrementally increasing challenges, teaching them and showing them how to meet those challenges and rewarding each small successes  along the way builds self esteem and creates a confident child who doesn't flinch at a new task or environment.

Introducing your child into in a positive "Can Do Atmosphere" where development through meeting the next challenge is the norm. Keeping them physically active and getting the required levels of oxygen is going to help. As a Karate instructor I see it all the time.

Can you inspire confidence in children?  Yes and its great fun.

Have a go.

Slow Down to Learn Faster

How many brains do you have?


Well depending on your level of medical, physiological, psychological or self improvement industry knowledge you have and the models you choose to use, the answer can range from one, to as many as seven, may be more.

For our purposes (the teaching physical skills  in the form of Karate mainly to children) the answer is 

Two.

Yes,  two brains and no not Left and Right Hemisphere.

I'm talking about the conscious and subconscious (or unconscious) minds. ("Unconscious" in Martial Art circles, tends to involve a short period of sleep just after you receive blow to the chin).

Explaining to a Junior School aged child the meaning of the Conscious and Subconscious minds is a bit like herding cats, it can be done, but its a tad on the tricky side. I believe however that it is an important concept. 

We ask, as educators, that children learn, remember and be able to recall a piece of behavior or knowledge, whether it be a specific movement pattern in the case of Martial Arts  or the accurate history of the country in which you live, but if we often don't explain to children just what the learning process involves and then they can get frustrated, with low self esteem and end up trying very hard, but do the very thing that prevents then learning effectively.

As I see it, when we learn something new we use our Conscious brain, we think, we concentrate, and focus on joining what we don't know to what we do. We use up physical energy in the brain, its a slow process and feels like hard work.

Eventually if  we concentrate, focus and take the time required we start to assimilate the knowledge into our automatic storage device, our Subconscious.

As adults, using the Conscious mind to teach the Subconscious mind, is a concept we can grasp, as children its a bit tricky.


Explaining this to Children (Mat Chat)

I ask my students how many brains do you have? 

I've had some strange answers, but in this context I want the answer - Two. 

"The first of your brains is the The Human, thinking, learning, slow, working things out brain,

and the second is the fast automatic, takes no effort or energy to use "Computer" brain.

Now some thing for you do, are you ready? Sure? 

 Answer as quickly as you can....... one plus one?

"Two" 

 in about a tenth of a second.... that's the computer brain, you know the answer, no effort no concentration of focus. 


Now try to answer  the following ................Sixty Five times Twelve......... um.

No answer from the computer, so you start to use the Human brain, slow, using up energy and taking all your attention complex and confused about where to start,

(I couldn't be bothered to do it either, just to much effort involved.... Oh alright then it's 780). 

Now, when you are learning some thing new, you need to use the "Human" brain to programme the Computer brain and we all know how slow it is to programme a computer, it takes ages, its slow and you have to be very accurate or the computer doesn't do the right thing.


What happens if you rush when your programming a computer? What about if you miss things out of the programme? Skip things? or just put in rubbish instructions? Yeah Garbage in Garbage out.

When you is trying to learn its just the same. 


Remember, in order to teach your Computer brain, (so that in the future it does what you want it to), you have to use your Human brain. Go slow, allow your brain to get things right, and repeat it again and again. 


Yes it is going to take energy and effort and time to start with, but once the computer brain has got it it will (with refreshers every now and again) give you the answers (movement) you want, as easy as One plus One equals Two". 

So take your time and do things slowly giving your Human brain the chance to work things out and do things properly. Then repeat and repeat again. Slowly you will programme your Computer brain and then, what you have learnt will be easy and fast to do.   

You've learnt it!!!


A Final Thought.

Kids who pick things up quickly are labeled bright and intelligent, and kids who are slower get labeled as ... well, slow. Meaning that there is an unspoken agenda for kids to pick things up quickly to prove that they are in the bright category (in Karate schools, quickly and with dynamic energy) this agenda leads to behavior which is the exact opposite (slowing down) of what is required for effective learning. 

The slow (time allowed) repeated use of focused, concentrated, accurate, precise, Human Brain which is able to "join the dots up"  is much more effective, than trying to use the human brain once (i.e. quickly) and then rely upon the computer (which may or may not have got in order to produce the required results. Slow learning may seem a bit more inefficient but in the long term can be much more effective. 

As "Practice makes Permanent" (not perfect) my plea is that you get children/students to to slow down allow themselves thinking and processing time and do the movements correctly before increasing speed and dynamics. 

We've only got "Two Brains" please give them a chance.