Raising Confident Kids in 2025
- nurturingwellnessl
- Jun 5
- 4 min read
Are we raising the anxious generation?
According to the CDC, “10% of kids age 3-17 have been diagnosed with anxiety.”
With or without a diagnosis, we know that all kids experience some level of anxiety. Anxiety is a feeling like any other! As a family therapist, I teach kids that there are no “good” feelings or “bad” feelings. Everyone experiences all of the feelings, including feeling nervous or anxious. Our job as adults is not to help kids get rid of difficult feelings, but rather to learn how to work with them rather than avoiding them or pushing them away.
Normalize feeling anxious
An easy step for helping kids to handle big feelings like anxiety is to normalize the feeling itself. Remind your child that everybody gets nervous sometimes and that it's ok to feel nervous! Using a feeling chart with faces is a great way to help teach your kids how to identify their feelings. Anxiety becomes a problem when it holds kids back from trying new things or doing things that are hard for them to do.
Has your child ever struggled at soccer or t-ball practice to keep trying when they aren't immediately good at their new sport? Does your kid get nervous to get on the field because they don’t know any of the kids on their team? What about the classic struggle of not wanting to raise their hand in class in case they get the answer wrong and everyone laughs at them? It’s normal for kids to want to “give up” or avoid trying new things. Think about how you feel as an adult when you try something new? It is usually scary at first but rewarding in the long run. Remember, kids haven't had the life experiences to know that it's worth feeling scared or uncomfortable to get better at something. We have to teach them how to get through those big feelings and keep trying when things get hard.
Encourage your child to try new things
Remember, our job as caregivers isn’t to help our kids avoid scary new things but to help them know they can get through these situations. Summer is a great time to practice building up your child’s self confidence. But how do we do that? One easy way is by encouraging our kids to try new things that may be challenging for them such as riding a bike, jump rope, swimming, etc. Everyday kids have opportunities to try new things and become more confident in their abilities.
You may consider engaging your child in more structured activities as well such as card or board games. Improving at skills such as following rules, taking turns, and remaining calm when losing are more ways to improve your child’s self confidence. Below is a great list of games listed by age to help kids with these skills.
Teach your child to speak positively to themselves
During activities like these you can help improve your child’s inner self talk by modeling positive self talk out loud. Let’s say your child falls off their bike. Rather than "You're fine just get back up” try, “That must have been scary when you fell down on your bike AND I know you can get back up and try again. Everybody falls down sometimes”.
Praise your child for trying hard at something new
Praise your child for their efforts rather than the end result. For instance try saying, “I am so proud of you for getting back on your bike after you fell off” or “Good job finishing the game even though you knew you weren’t going to win”. Better yet encourage your child to be proud of themselves! Try saying something like, “I bet you are so proud of yourself for working so hard on your backstroke”.
Practice and Repetition
Confidence is a skill just like any other. How do we help our kids build up skills such as having confidence? Through practice and repetition.
Think about how many times in life you have tried something, been bad at it, and kept trying until you got better at it. It is our job to help teach our kids that they can do that too. Everyday is an opportunity to teach our kids to feel confident in themselves. Everyday is an opportunity to teach them that they can fail and still feel confident in themselves. Everyday is an opportunity to normalize that everybody fails, especially when learning something new.
Every time your kids feel anxious, wants to give up, or fails at something new, you have the opportunity to help build up their confidence in themselves.
Remember you can do this by:
Normalizing how your child is feeling
Encouraging your child to try new things
(especially things they're not good at YET)
Improving your child’s positive self talk
Praising your child for trying something new
Rinse and repeat through practice and repetition
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