Building children’s confidence often comes down to the everyday words, questions and choices adults make when a child is finding something hard. This printable parenting and child wellbeing poster highlights eight common responses that can unintentionally undermine self-belief, alongside more helpful alternatives for supporting kids to persist, learn and recover from setbacks.
In everyday parenting, teaching and support sessions, it can be useful to pause and consider whether reassurance is helping a child feel capable or making a challenge feel bigger. The poster explores eight confidence-building habits that may backfire, including telling a child that something is easy, praising ability rather than effort, and stepping in as soon as they struggle.
Each numbered section explains why a familiar adult response can be unhelpful and offers an alternative sentence to try. For example, adults are encouraged to acknowledge that a task is tricky, ask what the child could try first, notice a specific strategy they used, and give them another go before offering help.
Further prompts focus on reducing comparisons with siblings or classmates, looking beyond marks and winning, allowing mistakes, and giving children age-appropriate opportunities to do tasks independently. The final point reminds adults that confidence does not always come before action, and that courage can be recognised when children try despite feeling nervous or unsure.
Parents, foster carers, teachers, teaching assistants and family support workers can print the poster for a kitchen noticeboard, classroom, pastoral area or parenting discussion. It is particularly suited to adults supporting primary-age children who are anxious about mistakes, reluctant to try new tasks, or quick to say they cannot do something.
