Thursday, March 31, 2011

Confidence

So every day I go to my daughter's school and I observe the other people around me.
I am a very quiet person when unfamiliar with people and tend to keep to myself for a while and observe everything around me taking in everything.
Now as I observe the other mothers I notice that quite a lot of mothers tend to "hover" over their child. They say the words, 'don't do that, you will fall' or, 'get down from there, you wil hurt yourself' or I have even heard, 'you can't do that'
Then I wonder what the other mothers think of me when my kids say, 'mummy look at me' as they are hanging upside down on the monkey bars with one hand and my response is, 'Wow, look what you can do!'
Even my 20 month old loves climbing things and Yes I 'hover' over her if she is doing something particularly dangerous as she is still only young and still learning. But Miss 3, Mr 4 and Miss 5 I usually watch from a distance praising there ability to do something rather than telling them they can't. Because I am trying to teach my children they can do anything they set there mind to, with help if they need it.
I don't want to tell my children they can't do that because they hurt themselves. If they don't try how will they know? If I keep telling them they can't or not to because of said reason I worry that they would grow up thinking that they can't or shouldn't do something because they might not be able to.
I want my kids to know that they can at least TRY and that if they haven't been able to do it the first time they can always try again. I want them to know they have my support that I am encouraging them not trying to tell them no don't you might fall.
So what if they fall, they can pick themselves up and I will be there to help them. A broken bone can be fixed, a failure means that you just have to try harder next time but to try anyway because they CAN do it. I don't want my children to feel they can't do something that seems slightly too hard.
I want my children to have confidence within themselves and know that I have confidence in them.
Is that so wrong?

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