What is self-esteem and self-confidence and how do you get it?

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What is self-esteem and self-confidence and how do you get it?

Self-esteem and self-confidence are words we use regularly in our day-to-day discussions with friends, family, colleagues, peers and with our children. Many people use the words interchangeably, assume they have the same meaning and even define one using the other but what most people don’t know is that they are NOT the same and that it’s important to know the difference as it can have a huge impact on the quality of your life.

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Education, Career and Money life skills for children

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Education, Career and Money life skills for children

Helping children understand the opportunities that developing effective learning strategies can bring and how learning provides the vehicle for personal and professional development are fundamental to developing a positive attitude to learning at the individual level and a skilled workforce at the national level. 

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Health and Wellbeing life skills for children

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Health and Wellbeing life skills for children

A child can function more efficiently and effectively in a clean and tidy environment. Further, a child’s diet and exercise play crucial roles in their physical and mental well being. These are very valuable life skills for your child.

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Communication Skills and Relationships social skills for children

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Communication Skills and Relationships social skills for children

Effective communication and social skills enable children to develop strong relationships with family, colleagues and friends and work in a productive, harmonious and enjoyable way. Learning how to cooperate and work in a group as well as understanding when to lead and when to follow are valuable skills. Other social skills for children to learn include understanding how to avoid unnecessary conflict and how to be a good communicator.  Building relationships is essential for creating a happy and productive life. 

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Helping Kids Learn How to Be Healthy

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Helping Kids Learn How to Be Healthy

Good health is a great foundation upon which to build a great life. The press is filled with scary news about how our children are obese and unhealthy. So as a parent what can you do to help your kids learn about how to be healthy? One important part of child development is instilling knowledge and good habits around eating and exercise. What kids learn about health when they are young will help them throughout their whole life.

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Inspired Creativity life skills for children

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Inspired Creativity life skills for children

If a child is experiencing a difficulty in their life, having the skills to clearly identify and articulate the difficulty, feel empowered to set goals and the take actions to overcome the difficulty allows the child to turn a negative situation into a positive one. This is very empowering and encourages children to be resourceful, develop their imaginative skills, discover what inspires them and achieve their goals. Creating opportunities for children to nurture their creativity is beneficial for both work and play.

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Personal Power - advice for parents

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Personal Power - advice for parents

High self esteem and self confidence allow children to feel good about who they are and believe in themselves.  These children are more likely to try new things and pick themselves up and bounce back after a difficult experience. These are very valuable personal attributes and life skills for your child.

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Relaxation and Play life skills for children

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Relaxation and Play life skills for children

Do you and your children regularly take time out to relax and play together? This is very important in today’s society as most parents are rushing, overworked and lack a good work-life balance. This is also true for our children who are busy with school, homework, sporting activities, after-school tutoring and social networking and the list goes on. Being able to relax and to play reduces anxiety, illness and increases the joy in life.

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Understanding and claiming personal power

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Does your child give their power away to other people or things outside them? Does your child say things like “that person makes me angry” or “you made me do that” or “she makes me jealous” or “having that thing makes me happy” and in this way give their power away to people and things outside themselves?

OR does your child claim and use their own power by acknowledging that they are responsible for their own feelings, thoughts and behaviours? If a child believes people and things outside them have power over their thoughts, feelings and actions then they can feel powerless as they can’t control things outside themselves. If a child takes responsibility for their own thoughts, feelings and actions then they are in control and powerful.

‘Treats’ or ‘weekend food’

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Parents often call sweets, chocolates, crisps, cakes and biscuits ‘treats’. Generally, children LOVE their ‘treats’ and will do almost anything to get them. While calling unhealthy junk foods ‘treats’ may seem harmless, but upon closer consideration it may actually be more harmful than helpful. Instead of using the word treat, call junk food exactly it is, by its name or call it weekend food and explain that it is only weekend food rather than everyday food.  Talking about junk food - the sugary, fatty and processed foods as weekend food:

1. helps parents understand that how they name ‘unhealthy’ foods can affect how their children feel and behave in relation to those foods, and

2. explores helpful ways to label and educate children about sweets etc…

Does your child have good friends?

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Friendship is such an important part of life. Just one true friend can make all the difference when your child needs support. On the other hand, if a child gets in with “the wrong crowd” this can take their life into directions parents would rather not think about. Discuss this topic with your child by asking them about their friendships. Also relate your personal stories of your own friendships make sure you include both the good and bad focussing on the lessons you learned. This:

1. helps your child further develop their understanding of the qualities of a good friend

2. invites them to take a close look at their current closest friends and see if they are good friends

3. enables you to understand who your child has chosen as close friends and to share your beliefs and ideas about friendship with your child.

The Importance of Attachment

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Attachment is an emotional bond and connection to another person. Psychologist John Bowlby was the first attachment theorist, describing attachment as a "lasting psychological connectedness between human beings" (Bowlby, 1969, p. 194).

Bowlby believed that the earliest bonds formed by children with their caregivers have a tremendous impact that lasts throughout life. According to Bowlby, attachment also serves to keep the infant close to the mother, thus improving the child's chances of ‘survival’.

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The funny side of parenting

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Dr Rosina talks about the funny side of parenting. What do you do when your child has splattered yoghurt all over your kitchen and it’s the last thing you need right now? Do you yell, laugh or cry? Find out what Dr Rosina did and how she learned many valuable parenting lessons from that messy life experience.

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The many benefits of gratitude

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Are your children grateful for the people, the possessions and the experiences in their lives? Well, research shows that it can be of benefit for your children to develop an “attitude of gratitude”. Being grateful helps children become aware of and appreciate the good things in their lives and not take them for granted. This allows children to know what is important in their life and what makes them happy, which helps them identify and achieve life goals for a full and inspired life !

Studies also show both mental and physical benefits for people who are actively grateful on a daily basis. For example:

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Discipline that supports good self-esteem: focusing on behaviour rather than the child

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When disciplining, our communication can support our children to develop of a strong sense of self or it can make them doubt themselves. 

For example, if our words focus on the child’s behaviour we can help them learn how to act in the world appropriately without hurting their self-esteem. To explain with an example, let’s say your child refuses to share their toys – a common developmental stage for toddlers. If your communication is along the lines of “oh you’re a naughty boy. Why can’t you be more like your friend Braden he shares his toys? Good boys share with their friends when will you learn to share with your friends?”

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Stress makes parents and children sick

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Stress makes parents and children sick

No matter who I speak with, everyone is experiencing stress at some level every day. Whether it is because there is too much to do, financial issues or relationship troubles each of these can create a lot of stress. Not to mention the low level stress like...what will I cook for dinner tonight, prepare for the children’s lunches tomorrow or buy for my friend’s birthday? And the list goes on…

And what about our children’s stress? Children have busy schedules, social issues and study pressures – not to mention the stress they experience simply because they see their parents are stressed. In my book, Inspired Children: how the leading minds of today raise their kids, has a chapter by Maggie Dent dedicated to understanding the stress children experience and how to help them manage it. You can read more about it in her chapter entitled: Calming children and the world: tools for managing stress and chaos.

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Nurturing young children's creative abilities

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Young children are naturally creative and I see that creativity in their art, music, dance, conversations, questioning and especially in their make-believe imaginative stories.  I have been nurturing our five-year-old son Cameron's creativity by providing lots of opportunities and experiences from which creative ventures can spark and grow into being. Here are a few of the activities I've shared with Cameron which you might like to try in your home.

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Raising Inspired Children – Part 1 Making Inspired Babies

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The Importance of the time before conception - preconception 

Raising Inspired Children begins even before the baby is conceived. Sadly, current statistics indicate that couples are finding it increasingly problematic to conceive and with the number of stressful and difficult pregnancies on the rise, many couples are left in financial and emotional turmoil after simply trying to bring a beautiful being into this world.

While doing research for my book, Inspired Children: How the leading minds of today raised their children, I included the work of Jan Roberts the author of Great Stuff to Know Before you Conceive among many other books. Jan's research into preconception and pregnancy guides future parents through the stages of preconception, conception, birth, pregnancy, and toddlerhood.

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Raising Inspired Babies – Part 2

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Healthy babies: eliminating toxins and stress

My last blog post featured the work of Jan Roberts, author of Great Stuff to Know before you Conceive. I interviewed Jan on the Inspired Children Radio Show and she shared her extensive knowledge and insights on the topic of preconception, conception, pregnancy, birth and babies. She had so much to say I had to summarise it in a three part series. In part 1, Jan talked about preparing for conception (the preconception period) and shared her insights into helping parents conceive and raise healthy and happy babies. In part 2 below, there is more on conceiving babies by eliminating toxins and stress in order to prepare for the body for conceiving and a growing a healthy child. The final part in the series is on pregnancies and childbirth.

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