Colman Noctor: Why do we always want our children to be more confident?

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One of the most common questions I get asked by parents is: ‘How can I make my child more confident?’. This is often due to concerns that their child is perhaps shy, reserved or lacks social robustness. However, I have always believed that confidence is an overrated and misunderstood quality.

Confidence is widely regarded as our ability to project ourselves outwardly. This means it is largely performative and is associated with what we can do, as opposed to any deeply felt quality of who we are.

For example, a child may be a very skilled sportsperson, academic or musical performer and feel very confident when they are performing those activities. However, confidence does not always translate into happiness, and it certainly does not always equate to their self-worth. This is because self-confidence is largely an external dynamic, and visible by how we interact with others or the outside world. However, self-worth, self-value and self-belief are internal dynamics that involve the vital internal monologue we have with ourselves.

The reality is that our truth is the only truth that matters. However, as parents, we can overly focus on our child’s relationship with others and the outside world and forget to nurture their relationship with themselves. Confidence without self-worth is of little value. Many of the young people I treat in my psychotherapy practice, do not lack confidence, often it is their self-belief that is the problem.

Focus on external success

If we think about the interactive nature of confidence, it often concentrates on the external variables which tend to be tangible, visible and measurable. Childhood external variables are often outcome-focused, such as sportiness, academic ability, artistic skills and creativity. With success recognised in the form of medals, prizes or accolades. These are the things we believe are the currency for self-confidence.

Often when we attempt to reassure our children of their value, we can’t help but use these tangible examples by saying: ‘But you are really good at hurling, camogie, maths or drama’. This is an understandable default as it feels better to have some concrete evidence of their perceived value, but it does little to improve their feeling of self-worth.

Childhood is and always has been like a fishbowl, never at any other point in our lives will we be more scrutinised than when we are children. Childhood is awash with crude superficial external scrutiny, every day they are reminded by peers, teachers, coaches of being enough or not enough as children of all ages are streamed and graded on everything they do. Some will be placed in the honours class, or on the ‘A’s’ sports team, and others will be left behind. 

There are few adult comparisons as humiliating as the captain’s pick routine in the schoolyard at lunchtime when you dread being picked last for a team. Yet we endure the highest public scrutiny when we are most emotionally under-developed to manage it. Although this is not a new phenomenon, I wonder if the quality of streaming has got tougher in recent years?

As parents, we need to make sure we do not fall foul to over-using this outcome metric too.

Contrary to popular belief, self-worth and self-value do not evolve as a result of accumulating numerous external achievements. Instead, it emerges from our belief and conviction in our internal quality and value.

These internal values include our sense of loyalty, our acknowledgement of our own bravery, our ownership over our own kindness, acceptance of our generosity and appreciation of meaningfulness. These are the attributes that are rarely scrutinised, streamed or recognised by medals or awards and so they are often undervalued.

It is my view that childhood anxiety is not unrelated to our increased societal focus on external variables. I believe our parental expectations, our educational preoccupation with league tables and the primacy of results, has greatly impacted our collective sense of self-worth.

The value of something is often defined by society’s perception of it. For example, I don’t understand how fine art, fine antiques or fine wines can fetch exorbitant amounts of money, because, in my world, these particular items hold little value. So how is our value system constructed? What is the lens through which we judge our children or model priorities to our children? What do my family and society tell me I should value?

Ranking children by achievement 

Children are being overly ranked according to their achievements. The awards night at school will typically award the brightest, fastest and most skilled children. The awards night at the sports club will award the best, the strongest and the fastest. Our social media profiles tend to value viral content over quality content.

Children are growing up in a world that values performance more and more, and the substance of human virtue less and less, and understandably their personal value systems follow suit. I have met many teenagers who have told me: ’I have spent most of my life being who other people wanted me to be, and I forgot to be myself’.

Perhaps we could use the pause brought about by the pandemic to hold up a mirror to ourselves and evaluate what we see as valuable in our families. We need to change the narrative for our children so that the predominant outcome-focused values or performance and accolades are challenged by effort-focused values such as kindness, meaningfulness and authenticity. This might sound trite, but it is an investment in how we can best protect our children’s self-worth, self-value and self-belief.

Remember, the most important relationship your child will ever develop in their life is the relationship they have with themselves, so let’s pay some attention to nurturing that in a meaningful and authentic way, and if they develop additional confidence along the way, all the better.