Building Confidence in Kids

It is a week tomorrow since Noahs accident. He hasnt been back to school yet and is feeling very anxious about it!! We moved to the Central Coast from Kellyville about 9months ago. The move has been harder on our kids than I expected it would be. They miss their old school and friends, and regularly ask why we made them move?

It is hard for the kids to see the benefits in moving, even though to me, they are very obvious. We now have a bigger house, 10minutes from the beach, we have a pool, the kids can ride their bikes around the street as the area is alot quieter, the school is a 5minute walk up the hill, and they all have friends within walking distance. I am hoping that by next year there will be other new families at the school and our kids will feel alot more settled here.

Making new friends can be hard, sometimes it takes a while to really feel like you belong and fit in. Last week Noahs friend Ryan popped in to see how he was feeling and told him that some of the kids at school had laughed when Ryan told them what had happened to Noah!! Being a protective mum I immediately felt like I needed to march up to school with pictures of Noahs accident and the blood on the road (photos taken by my 7 year old Landon, while I was cleaning Noah up in the bathroom!) and demand sympathy and support! I discussed my plans with Noah and he suddenly seemed more worried about what I would do than his so-called friends!! I decided I needed to find another way to ease his concerns and build his confidence!
I googled "self conscious" and after a bit of sifting got onto a great site with some great ideas. These ideas can be great for kids and adults!! I wrote some of the relevant points down and took my list to Noah so we could talk about it together. This is how our conversation went...

Me;" Hey Noah I want to talk to you about going back to school tomorrow, I know you are feeling worried but I found some stuff on the internet that I think can really help you.
1. Recognise your insecurities. Noah what are you feeling worried about tomorrow?" Noah then told me he was worried about being teased becasue of how he looked. We talked about all the possible things kids might say and I pretended to be kids teasing him. He was laughing hysterically because he thought my acting was so good and that I really meant it when I said he looked soooooo gross!! We discussed some things he might say back to the kids teasing him like "You should have seen me last week, I look good now, or you should see the other guy I had a punch up with." ( dads idea of course)
2. Identify your success. We talked about what Noah is really good at why kids at school really like him, he is a great drawer some kids pay money for his pictures! He is also very funny.We talked about how his sore mouth wasnt going to change any of that!!
3. Be thankful for what you have. We talked about how it could have been worse he could have cracked his head open and then needed to get his head shaved so they could stitch it, which would have been devestating for Noah because he LOVES his hair!!
4. Look in the mirror and smile. This was a good one, he has a great smile and I havent seen much of it over the last week.
5. Fake it. We decided if his friends were mean then he should act like it doesnt bother him even if it does, because then they would get bored and stop.
6. Help others. If he helped other kids tomorrow he wont be worried about himself so much.
7. Always keep a smile on your face. Everyone wants to be friends with someone who is happy and makes them feel happy too.

The conversation went really well, he was laughing and feeling so much more relaxed about tomorrow. I think we sometimes forget the value of talking to our kids. With 5 kids at home sometimes it is hard for me to create times where I can talk to them really well one on one. The days that I manage to really look for that time I am so glad I did, it always goes well, kids love to be heard as much as adults do. They have things of worth to say and that is how we get to find out who they really are, and how we can address their concerns, help them to feel loved and build their confidence.

                             Noah doing a Noah's Ark puzzle given to him from Nanna Coulson.

Noahs farewell sleep over before we moved.

Having lots of people who love you at home always helps too.