Myth of confidence - 5

A friend of mine commented, "Why is it that the second child normally is more outgoing, more confident, more assertive, etc."
This made me think and realise that while I may not totally agree with the generalization he made, it is not a mere coincidence, that most parents who come and complain about the child being not so confident or shy, are usually talking about either their first child or their only child. Rarely its the second child that gets talked about in terms of being "less confident."

What I also realised from my extensive work with parents is that many first time parents are far more tentative, anxious and not too confident about their parenting leading them to be somewhat over protective, cautious and hence restrictive with their child. But by the time they have a second child, they are seasoned, they understand the child's development better, they realise many things that they were anxious about got sorted out on their own and so on.

Hence, automatically they start letting go their second child more. They are more open to giving their second child autonomy, independence and above all are far more relaxed and exude confidence in front of the child. Hence, the observation of my friend was not totally misplaced. Second children purely from a learning curve point of view, get a better deal - specially in terms of giving child opportunities to develop into a more confident individual.

In fact it is quite funny that while all professions in this world require that we go through extensive training and learning - parenting - one of the most important profession is left totally to our instincts which can be often very ineffective.

Hence, it becomes important for us as parents to learn about our child's development. It is important for us to know and understand the stages of child's development and to give our children developmentally appropriate environment and opportunities. Given we act according to these stages, I have no doubt children will automatically grow into confident human beings.

So here is the Myth - "the child should be confident at all ages". Nothing could be far from reality, specially if one understands Erik Erikson's (the great development physiologist) stages of child's development.  According to Erik Erikson, the infant starts with the stage of TRUST where he or she builds trust about himself as well as the world around based on trustworthy behaviour shown by adults around. The child starts building AUTONOMY  in the toddler years, which morphs into INITIATIVE (in "safe" environments) during the pre-school years.

Realise confidence is under construction during these three stages and many a times very situational - say a child may be very confident inside home but not in a friend's home or very confident with her regular teacher but not with a new teacher or very confident with familiar toys but tentative about new ones and so on.

Its only in the school age years, according to Erikson, when the child is actually building competence in many fields, that the child automatically starts showing confidence and then independence and responsibility naturally flows.

However, most important understanding that Erikson gave is not the stages itself, but how success in any stage is dependent on the favourable outcomes of the previous stage. Which means that child needs favorable environment, interactions and opportunities at each stage, from us parents, to be able to move developmentally successfully into the next stage.

So the next time you think that your child is not confident think on two lines - which stage is she in and what inputs she needs at this stage to make her finally a confident individual in life. Two, what were the inputs that were appropriate for the previous stages and if not offered how can one make up for the time lost.

For example, before we want the child do be socially interdependent (say sharing), have we given the child opportunities to develop independence first. Obviously, as even Stephen Covey remarked, independence precedes interdependence.

Also what my friend made me realise - even more - how important is for first times parents to learn and be trained - for the benefit of their child. So if you are a first time parent (and even a second child's one too) do invest your time in reading articles, books, attending workshops etc to understand your child's development better.

By Ratnesh & Aditi Mathur
For www.geniekids.com

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