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Boost Your Foster Child’s Confidence!

Friday 30 September 2016

Boost Your Foster Child’s Confidence!

Boy with football under arm

A lot of children go through stages of anxiety and low self-confidence. However, low confidence is especially common in foster children. Many have not had the best start in life and their circumstances prior to entering the care system and moving into an unfamiliar environment can fill them with self-doubt and fear.

By raising confidence, a child is likely to be happier and less likely to become a victim of bullying. Here are some of the best confidence-building techniques…

Spend time together!

Confident children are often ones who spend good quality one-on-one time with their parents or guardians, this may mean that your foster child needs extra love and attention after what has perhaps been a challenging time in their life.

Spending time, just the two of you, can work wonders for boosting confidence. It helps build trust and enables them to feel more comfortable in their new surroundings. This time can be used to do anything from talking, going to the park, playing games or reading together. Try to take time out every day to spend some quality time with your foster child and you’ll soon start to see a difference in their confidence.

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Encourage their natural abilities

When a child does something they are good at, it makes them feel much better about themselves. Playing to their strengths is a great way to nurture confidence.

It could be that they are good at music for example. By enrolling them into a music class, they will get to enhance their natural talent, meet like-minded children, and realise that they do have talents that should be celebrated.

Allowing them to play to their strengths also gives them something to focus on. Remember, a lot of foster children haven’t had the opportunity to focus on their natural talents and they may not even realise they have any. Helping them to discover and enhance their strengths will help a lot more than you realise.

Well-directed praise

Children need to feel like they are valued. Praise is a great way to build up confidence, but only if it’s well-directed.

Recognising they did something despite their fears can really help a child grow in confidence. It can be hard watching your foster children suffer from a lack of confidence, however with time and patience you’ll soon start to see their confidence growing day after day.

We’d love to hear from our carers who have experience with this topic so please head on over to our Facebook page and share your thoughts and experiences.

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