Children need confidence-boosting in many areas of their lives as they grow up. Confidence can receive a boost as children receive praise and positive affirmations of things they are doing well.
Besides praise and positive affirmations, here are some ways to improve a child’s confidence:
- Letting them make their choices: We don’t mean you have to let your child be in charge; provide them with options to choose from and let them make their choice.
- Helping them set attainable goals: Setting and reaching attainable goals will make your kid feel good about what they’ve accomplished, no matter how big or small it might’ve been.
- Focusing on their interests: Take time to appreciate what your child is interested in. This will demonstrate to them that what they like is important and matters.
- Promoting positivity: Life can be difficult, but teaching kids to be positive will enable them to try to find ways to solve any problems they might encounter, further enhancing their confidence and ability to tackle tough situations.
- Serving others: Children—just like adults—like to feel they’re making a difference. Helping someone else is a great way to effect positive change.
- Be consistent: Having rules and sticking to them helps your children be confident in what they can and cannot do.
- Support physical activity or sports: Sports help kids learn so many things, from confidence in their abilities to awareness of their weaknesses.
We’re going to focus on the confidence boost kids get from participating in sports and other physical activities. One of the best ways to build confidence in kids is to expose them to an activity that might frighten them initially. An activity like swimming.
Removing Bad Behavior with Confidence Building Activities for Kids
Bad behavior can often be a sign of fear, and swimming can be very scary. But the sooner you expose your child to it, the better. Because the same elements of swimming that make it tough and difficult for children of all ages are also what make it an amazing learning and growing opportunity.
Swimming is one of the most amazing confidence-building activities for kids. At SwimJim, we work with children from the ages of 8 weeks old to upwards of preteen ages. We help them not only increase their swimming skills, but build their own self-confidence as well.
Child Self Esteem Activities with SwimJim
There are many different ways to build up a child’s self-esteem. At SwimJim, we’re sure of our ability to teach any child both how to swim and how to have more confidence in themselves.
Listed below are some of the skills we work on with kids that increase their confidence:
- Floating and horizontal balance
- Controlled breathing
- Awareness of water safety
- Locomotion and propulsion
- Controlled breathing with movement
- Submerging
- Arm strokes and kicking technique
- Increased independence in water
- Underwater swimming
- Developing individual strokes
- Spatial awareness
- Diving and turning
- Wall work and starts
What is the best way swimming builds self-confidence in a child? Look at that list again. We believe it has to do with the process of learning. Kids don’t know how to swim. They might have some inherent talent or abilities, but for the most part, everyone has to be taught how to float or hold their breath underwater.
We place children in one of ten levels based on their age and experience with swimming. Breaking down swimming into the steps mentioned above and taking them one at a time allows the kids we teach to grow confident as they master one skill and move on to the next.
SwimJim Lessons
When kids are placed in an environment where it is safe to fail as well as safe to succeed, they will naturally become more confident. Rudeness or temper tantrums can be wiped away as the children focus on learning to swim and enjoy being in the water.
Sign up for lessons with SwimJim today and experience the benefits first hand!