Episode 81: Understanding the Building Blocks of Self-Confidence in Academic Achievement

Are you doing these critical things to help your child succeed academically? Take the quiz now to find out the important actions you can take to enhance your child's education. Go to my website, liberationthrougheducation.com quiz and take the quiz today. Foreign welcome to another episode of K12 Education Untangled. My name is Dr. Kim Fields, former corporate manager turned educational researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with school educators and administrators, as well as experiencing the microdiscriminations that I faced as an African American mom raising my two kids who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. Once I gained the information and the insights that I needed, I was then equipped to be able to successfully support my children in their educational progress. If you're looking to find out more about current information and issues in education that could affect you or your children, then you're in the right place. Thanks for tuning in today. I know that staying informed about K12 education trends and topics is important to you, so keep listening. On today's episode, I'll be discussing how self confidence impacts academic achievement. I'll also provide some specific actionable steps you can take to raise a self confident child. Self confident children tend to achieve more, feel more comfortable in their own skin, and believe that they are able to to accomplish what they set their minds to accomplish regardless of setbacks. Confidence in oneself and one's thoughts are critical to excelling. Therefore, a child who sees himself or herself as capable is more likely to succeed academically. On the other hand, a child who sees himself or herself as unable and less sure may not come up with the ideal levels of academic fulfillment. Therefore, self confidence should be emphasized throughout the learning process. Let's get started. Self confidence is an uplifted state of mind in which the person feels that he or she, for the most part, is equipped to to deliver required results. How students view themselves is a significant role in how they perform. A self confidence student performs to his or her highest capabilities. Students with high self confidence tend to participate energetically in the learning process. Confidence grows from knowledge and experience. Self confidence is the psychological concept that plays an important role in academic achievement. It helps to determine a person's feelings, thoughts, behaviors, and motivation for a certain task. A student with high self confidence tends to make greater efforts to complete the task and and they persist more in the face of challenges. Students who are self confident and know how to access information will be successful in finding, monitoring, and evaluating information in a planned and controlled manner for cognitive learning processes. Students who are more active in the learning process will increase their success as they take responsibility for their learning. In order to take responsibility for learning, students need first to believe that they will learn, that they will be able to find and use information on their own, and that they'll be able to gauge permanent learning by assessing their knowledge. Self confidence is a combination of self esteem and self efficacy and is a personality trait that develops under the influence of school, family, and environment. It consists of intrinsic self confidence and extrinsic self confidence. Intrinsic self confidence deals with self love and recognition, whereas extrinsic self confidence is a reflection of an individual's self love and satisfaction to the environment. Self confidence is also a factor that determines motivation and successful students have higher levels of self confidence and motivation. Self confident students trust their own abilities, have a general sense of control in their lives, and believe that they'll be able to do what they wish, plan, and expect. Now, this doesn't mean that they'll be able to do everything. They do have realistic expectations, and even when some of their expectations aren't met, they continue to be positive and to accept themselves. Self confidence is a general concept that extends across different tasks and various domains. Research indicates that most students who are confident on one task also tend to be more competent across other tasks. Research theories state that by the age of 11, typically, children should be able to realize that their own thoughts can influence their performance on a task. In fact, the sense of self confidence should be a stable component of a child's thinking repertoire by grade 4. Also, maternal care seemed to positively predict the levels of self confidence for a child regardless of his or her age or gender, with higher levels of maternal care associated with greater levels of self confidence. According to a 2010 study conducted at the University of Sydney, maternal bonds, in contrast to paternal bonds, directly predicted self confidence levels in adults. Paternal bonds or bonds with fathers and paternal care indirectly predicted self confidence. A healthy mother child and father child bond is important for for a child's optimal cognitive development. Students self confidence affects their learning in areas of participation, goal setting, interest in content lessons, as well as decreasing anxiety and becoming comfortable with their educators and classmates. They also felt more comfortable sharing their opinions related to lessons in class. Self confidence is necessary for a student to take risks and engage in learning activities. Students who have self confidence are assured of their abilities and are setting goals for themselves therefore, they work hard to achieve their goals without worrying about outcomes. Self confidence can be lowered due to a student's anxiety, insecurity and fear. A student's academic achievement can be affected by his or her self confidence. Students who were confident at school were also confident in goal seeking and were very focused on achievement. Self confidence directly affects a student's academic performance. Students with low self confidence experience fearfulness, being pessimistic, having no vision for life, and feeling insecure, whereas high self confident students tend to be ambitious, want more from life, are goal oriented, and have a real vision for life. Confidence comes from facing the possibility of failure, knowing how to deal with it, and setting goals to overcome any failure. Children who are not self confident tend to depend excessively on the approval of others in order to feel good about themselves. Self confidence is not necessarily a general characteristic that pervades all aspects of a child's life. Most of the time children will have some area of their lives where they feel quite confident like in academics or athletics, while at the same time they may not feel as confident in other areas or like social relationships. Parents attitudes are critical to children feeling about themselves. Especially in the early years when parents provide acceptance, children receive a solid foundation for feeling good about themselves. However, if one or both parents are excessively critical or demanding or they are overprotective and discourage any move toward independence, children may come to believe that they are incapable, inadequate or or inferior. On the other hand, if parents encourage children's growth towards self reliance and accept and love their children when they make mistakes, then children learn to accept themselves and will be on their way to developing self confidence. Surprisingly, a lack of self confidence is not necessarily related to a lack of ability. It is often the result of focusing too much on unrealistic expectations or standards of others, especially parents, friends and society. Friends influences can be just as powerful as parents and society in shaping feelings about how children see themselves. Interestingly, findings from a 2012 study indicated that children with siblings tend to have more self confidence than single children. This may have been due to the fact that children with siblings develop conflict resolution skills, social relationship skills, emotional support skills, and communication skills. The results of this study also revealed that adolescent children of working mothers had higher academic achievement than adolescent children of non working mothers. Academic development is the primary concern and the most important goal of education. Academic achievement is the unique responsibility of all educational institutions in order to promote a wholesome scholastic development of the students. In other words, it is the performance of the student which decides their fate. Various factors and conditions affect academic achievement, including the student's interests, the teacher's methodology of teaching, socioeconomic conditions and family setup, as well as other psychological factors that affect a student's performance directly or indirectly. A sense of achievement is a source of joy and good feeling and a failure is a source of anger and frustration. Self confidence is the first step to progress, development, academic achievement, and success. The thing is that even if the student has a lot of abilities and above average levels of knowledge, if that student does not have self confidence, more than likely he or she will not be a success. Here are some action steps that you can take regarding this topic. The main question is how do you raise a child to be more self confident? There are a number of ways to do this. Have you had a chance to check out my interactive expert on my website? There are some great conversations and questions going on there. You can check it out at liberation through education.com forward/ask me anything. Again, check out the questions and conversations happening there ationthrougheducation.com forward/ask me anything number one creating an environment in which conflict is handled and resolved in a win win outcome without the histrionics and trauma. 2. Provide less instant gratification. Children won't always remember the material things that you provided, but they will remember the feeling that you love them. Encourage your child to discover the joy of playing and nature so that their fulfillment doesn't depend on acquiring more things. You can also choose to actively downsize the number of toys and possessions that your children are surrounded by because children who have less seem to value what they have more than others who have a room filled with toys and other things. 3. Do less comparing of your child with others, including siblings. This generally leads to a sense of inadequacy and a sense of not being enough. 4. Be attentive but not overly attentive. This balance is necessary because if you are an overly attentive parent, you end up damaging your child's self confidence and self esteem because they think they're the center of the attention from everyone, even from the universe. It also creates a sense of entitlement for the child. Just think about the children that you know whose parents are overattentive. Does it really help the child as they grow up? Is it the best way of instilling self confidence? 5. Cut down on your child's screen time. The World Health Organization recommends no more than one hour of screen time per day for children aged two to four. Think of other activities that your child could do, including arts and crafts, reading or outdoor activities like running, skipping, jumping rope, etc. The key to less screen time for your children is reducing your own screen time as well. Children learn from what they see, not necessarily from what you say. 6. Create a safe and secure environment that reduces fear. Fears can be significant roadblocks to academic achievement, diminishing motivation and the ability to concentrate. Let your child know that it's okay to have fears, but also let him or her know that most fears are not real and that together you both can break any fear barrier that may be stopping him or her. 7. Encourage your children to be independent thinkers, having a right to their own opinions about various subjects. You may not agree with their opinion, but you are at least giving them the space to voice their opinion. It's your responsibility as parents to have discussions and conversations that continually make your children more competent as well as make more physical and other differences less important, informing their sense of self concept and developing self confidence. 8. Provide more praise for effort instead of results, especially for tasks or activities that involve an unlearned skill or a to be developed aptitude. In these cases, giving your child praise for trying and staying on course builds self confidence. This type of praise leads to an important life lesson and that is the development of a don't quit philosophy. Also, be sure to catch your child when they're doing something right to encourage them to Repeat the positive behavior. 9. Practice using visualization and affirmations at an early age to develop self confidence. For example, if your child has a speaking opportunity at school, you can encourage him or her to close his eyes and imagine that she's speaking and seeing himself or herself as being comfortable with public speaking. They could state an affirmation to themselves like I'm confidently and comfortably speaking before my class. This kind of visualization can be done repeatedly, like for four or five times before going to sleep each night, and then when the actual event happens, your child is prepared and confident. Confidence building is not only done on achievement, but it also has to do with strengthening the inner belief that the child is accepted, loved and cared for as he or she is right now. It's an unconditional acceptance that you can help nourish and therefore be build the foundation of a confident child. 10. Be more of the parent and less of the friend. You must consistently establish rules, boundaries and limitations or guidelines for your children in order to keep them safe, to reinforce family values, as well as to follow rules of the household. Being your child's friend, according to the research indicates time and time again that this style is negative, associated with emotional competencies including emotional regulation capabilities, and is directly related to increased emotional problems and number 11 be more achievement oriented by setting goals. Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound goals help to identify or what is to be done and by when. This helps your child establish what he or she is clear about and wants to achieve as well as instilling the desire to make special efforts to accomplish the achievement. However, setting goals alone doesn't always guarantee success, so learning to cope with setbacks is a very important life lesson to learn. A key part of this achievement orientation is the ability to deal with disappointment and to keep moving ahead. The fact of the matter is that children need to work hard until self confidence develops naturally. There are some things that you can do to help your child improve and or build confidence in his or her academic performance. The first step in gaining self confidence for academic performance is knowing that your child will wants to do well in school. Then plan ahead. By scheduling enough time to finish assignments and study for exams, you can show your child how to make their goals more manageable by learning how to break projects into smaller parts. Make sure that you have sufficient educational resources so that your child can do the work required and be sure to celebrate when your child does a good job. You can share his or her work with other family members by hanging it on a bulletin board or on the refrigerator. And finally, help your child recognize that their best efforts may not yield expected results. Help him or her to learn from mistakes. It's also worth considering your child's motivation, time management, organization, attitude, and other characteristics that may affect the learning process as well as his or her well being. Here are this episode's takeaways. Self confidence is a personality trait that is a composite of a person's thoughts and feelings, strivings and hopes, fears and fantasies. It also encompasses attitudes pertaining to self worth. It's basically a positive attitude of oneself toward one's self concept. Self confidence refers to a person's perceived ability to tackle a situation successfully and to have a positive self evaluation. A self confident student perceives himself or herself to be socially competent, emotionally mature, intellectually adequate, successful, satisfied, decisive, optimistic, independent, self reliant, self assured, fairly assertive, and having leadership qualities. Self confidence is the first step to progress, development, academic achievement, and success. The thing is that even if a student has a lot of abilities and above average levels of knowledge, if that student doesn't have self confidence, more than likely he or she will not be a success. Self confidence is a combination of self esteem and self efficacy and is a personality trait that develops under the influence of school, family, and environment. It consists of intrinsic self confidence and extrinsic self confidence. Intrinsic self confidence deals with self love and recognition, whereas extrinsic self confidence is a reflection of the individual's self love and satisfaction to the environment. Self confidence is also a factor that determines motivation, and successful students have higher levels of self confidence and motivation. The good thing is that confidence is learned, it's not inherited. If a person lacks confidence, it probably means that as a child, he or she was criticized, undermined, or suffered a tragic loss for which he or she either blamed himself or herself or was blamed by others. A person's religion, the influence of culture, gender, social class, and parents in particular are all factors which influence and contribute to a person's level of confidence. In the words of Swami Vivicananda, stand up, be strong, be bold, take the whole responsibility on your shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and support you want is within you. Therefore, make your own future did you enjoy this episode? If so, then leave me a rating of you or a comment on Apple or podchaser. Leaving me a review is a great way to support me and to help my podcast grow. And remember to share this episode with anyone you think would find it valuable. Be sure to tell your friends, family and community community about my podcast. Thanks for listening today. I hope you'll come back for more K12 educational discussions with even more exciting topics to untangle. Be sure to stay tuned on the next episode. I'll be discussing the role of the school board. Until next time, aim to learn something new every day. Love my show. Consider being a regular subscriber. You can subscribe for as little as $3 per month. Just go to Forward Slash Podcast Support. There's no contractual obligation you can cancel at any time. If you choose to subscribe, I'll give you a special shout out thanking you in an upcoming episode. Remember, that's tinyurl.com com podcast support to subscribe.