Confidence in preschoolers

Support your child’s growth with autonomy-focused parenting. Encourage skill-building, praise effort, and foster confidence through challenges and age-appropriate tasks.

“Autonomy-supportive” parenting: provide support, encouragement, and choices, follow your child’s lead, and nudge them to stretch their skills in their learning “sweet spot”.
A child’s “sweet spot” is when a task is juuuust challenging enough that they can do it with minimal support from you. It’s a chance for them to stretch beyond what they thought they could do.
Praise can support your child’s confidence if it’s sincere and process-focused (not product-focused). Try to avoid “inflated” praise (“OMG THAT IS THE BEST PICTURE EVER!!”) – it can have the opposite effect.
Pay attention to how you discuss your child relative to other kids or siblings (this can impact self-esteem and confidence). Avoid comparison language.

Share moments when your own confidence is shaky so that your child can begin to understand that these feelings are normal.
Encourage failure. Yep, you heard that right! Instead of telling your child where the lego piece goes, let them experience frustration and attempt trial/error. This might be painful for you, but it lets your child know that you have confidence in their ability.
Model and encourage positive self-talk (“Hm…I’m close to completing this puzzle, but what am I missing?”).
Talk about your child’s moments of success after they’ve happened (“I remember when you solved that tricky puzzle! Remember how hard you worked on that?”).
Involve your toddler in age-appropriate tasks around the house (putting toys away, placing clothes in a hamper). They can be valuable helpers (and helping with chores can lead to more confidence in abilities).
- Hint: a chart with visual cues is helpful at this age!