Self Confidence

It’s time to course correct folks!

Hello! Hello!

Excited to catch up with you today.

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xoxo - WRW

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Dear Friends,

As a parent, one of the ways I will measure if I played my role well is whether I helped my children to develop an intense trust in their ability to rise to life’s journey. Did I give them the space needed to spread their wings, to try all kinds of different experiences, to fall seven and rise eight, all the while being their biggest fan, cheering them on, coaching even, yet not helicoptering their existence? Did I support them in finding their self confidence or did I hinder them by stepping in too much?

“Confidence” comes from the Latin fidere, which means to “have intense trust.” To be self confident is to literally have intense trust in one’s self. And confidence in ourself is a belief we earn over time by doing what we say we are going to do, especially when we don’t feel like it.

When we decide to hit the mountain trail tomorrow morning, and our alarm goes off but we don’t feel like going for a run because it’s cold, dark and we’re tired, yet we do so anyway, we are earning self confidence in ourselves. Sticking to the agreement we made to our practice or protocol, especially when we don’t want to, builds trust that we do what we say we will do.

My 7th grader following his protocol of sitting down first thing Saturday morning to do all of his weekend homework before playing builds his self confidence because over time he learns that he can trust that he does in fact rise to meet the commitments he has made.

Self confidence also comes from navigating unfamiliar circumstances and learning from these experiences. It may be messy but figuring our way through varying situations shows ourselves that “we can!” Cell phone battery dies at 10:30 pm on the streets of NYC on a mother daughter trip. Great. Don’t know the area, not sure how to get back to our hotel, just my daughter and me. No problem. We’ve got this! Small thing? Yes. But it’s these small things encountered and maneuvered, plus modeled for our children, which build scaffolding for the larger challenges that lie ahead.

Self confidence is not thinking that we will do “it” perfectly or that we will never fail. Having self confidence does not mean that we think “it” will always be easy for us. No. That’s silly because it’s unrealistic.

Rather, true confidence comes from knowing that we will have challenges, we will experience hardship and we have what it takes to rise to the challenge more and more consistently. We can do hard things. Including showing up and doing what we committed to do, even when we don’t feel like it. A self confident person is ready to seize opportunities, deal with difficult situations, and take responsibility if and when things go awry.

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As a young girl in the 70s, I was a latchkey kid. That means my parents both worked full time jobs precluding either of them from being home when I returned from school. Starting when I was 8 years old in 2nd grade, every afternoon I walked from my elementary school which was on 15th street to my home on 6th street, unlocked the door with my key, let myself inside and ate the snack my mom left for me, usually a PB&J plus fruit, carrots or celery. Then I would go outside to play with my neighborhood friends. Essentially I would take care of myself until my mom returned home from her 9 - 5 job.

I look back fondly on those days. It never crossed my mind that I was doing anything extraordinary. Back then I was not. Not only was it necessary in my family’s circumstance but it was also completely normal societally.

“Some young parents are unaware that 5 or 6 decades ago,
when their own parents were children, those as young as 5 or 6 years were largely free to explore and play away from direct adult oversight, and children and teens suffered far less than they do today from anxiety and depression.”
~ Peter Gray, PhD, David F. Lancy, PhD, and David F. Bjorklund, PhD

On any given afternoon following school, we kids would walk to a friend’s house, knock on the door and ask if so and so could come out and play. And play we did until the street lights came on at which time we all knew we had to get home. We climbed trees, rolled down lawns with “hilly grass”, rode our bikes, roller skated, went to the library, swam, stole fruit off of trees that were not ours, and just hung out.

I learned to not ride a bike with my eyes closed unless I want to hit a parked car, how to scale a fence and climb to the second story patio when I locked myself out of the house, how to climb through a friend’s doggie door when she locked herself out of the house, that there was safety in numbers, and most importantly to listen to my intuition.

There were safety measures in place. I was taught to not talk to strangers. To not take candy from strangers. (Yes that was a real thing.) I called my mom at her office when I got home so that she knew I made it ok. My grandmother lived on 11th street and my great grandmother lived on 8th street creating pit stops and check in points. Also, in those days members of our local PTA would hang 4 inch square white signs with a smiling yellow sun pictured on it in the windows of their home showing that it was a safe place for neighborhood kids that needed anything. We could stop and get water, use the bathroom or get bandaids, all of which we did. Those smiling suns shined their light through the windows on us kids all over our neighborhood.

Even with all of these wonderful safety arrangements, a certain amount of risk was inherent in a young child being unsupervised for a part of their day. But it is exactly the experience acquired from standing on my own two feet that taught me the valuable life skills that have empowered me to trust in my ability to rise to the challenges of life. To be confident in myself to handle what comes my way.

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There has been a pervasive shift, which ratcheted up in the mid 1990s, in how kids are being parented. Parenting has shifted from fairly relaxed and more permissive in the 1980s and early 90s, to being far more intensive, scheduled and controlled.

Additionally, there has been a sharp decline in unsupervised, child-directed play instead replaced by parent organized and participated play-dates. As written in The Atlantic essay by Derek Thompson, “In the past 40 years, American parents — especially those with a college degree — have nearly doubled the amount of time they spend coaching, chauffeuring, tutoring, and otherwise helping their teenage children.”

Check, check and check. I am guilty of all of this.

This shift also reflects characteristics of paranoid and fearful parenting with a focus on safetyism and accommodation resulting in children being coddled and internalizing a sense of fragility.

“Safetyism is the cult of safety — an obsession with eliminating threats (both real and imagined) to the point at which people become unwilling to make reasonable trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns. Safetyism deprives young people of the experiences that their antifragile minds need, thereby making them more fragile, anxious, and prone to see themselves as victims.” ~ Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure

“The more overwhelming the world feels to parents, the more they may try to bubblewrap their kids with accommodations. Over time, this protective parenting style deprives children of the emotional resilience they need to handle the world’s stresses.” Why American Teens Are So Sad

The way to think of accommodations is the idea of changing the road to meet our children versus our children rising to meet the road.

While adolescents are drinking less, having sex less and getting pregnant less, which is what we hope for, today’s teens are also less likely to drive, get a summer job, or be asked to do chores.

As Dr. Lebowitz of the Failure to Launch program at Yale University discusses and provides helpful suggestions to course correct, the changes in our parenting have robbed our children of the experiences necessary in order to build their self confidence and to successfully launch in college and young adulthood.

“Parents today are regularly subject to messages about the dangers that might befall unsupervised children and the value of high achievement in school. However, they hear little of the countervailing messages that if children are to grow up well-adjusted, they need ever-increasing opportunities for independent activity, including self-directed play and meaningful contributions to family and community life, which are signs that they are trusted, responsible, and capable. They need to feel they can deal effectively with the real world, not just the world of school.” ~ Decline in Independent Activity as a Cause of Decline in Children’s Mental Well-being: Summary of the Evidence, Journal of Pediatrics, 2023

This parenting shift is the result of good intentions carried too far. Intentions to protect children and keep them safe as well as to provide what many believe to be a better future via elite levels of achievement in school and on the sports field or court.

The research, however is clearly finding that the direction we are taking in parenting has serious adverse results.

Lastly, check out this chart and commentary below…

I have definitely fallen victim to my own worries that life today is not nearly as safe as it was when I was growing up. And in some respects things are vastly different today. However, in other respects, the news is better not worse, as seen in the FBI data above.

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I have been on a mission to course correct my parenting based on the vast research I have been following and diving into for quite some time. I have been empowering my son to run errands for me on his bike, such as riding down to Whole Foods, doing a bit of grocery shopping and riding back home; having the kids walk our poodle pack throughout the neighborhood further and longer; spending time, brother and sister, at our local bookstore on their own with us meeting back up together an hour or so later; and doing more advanced work in the garden and in the kitchen. They have also embarked on washing neighbor’s cars.

“Let Grow believes today’s kids are smarter and stronger than our culture gives them credit for. We are making it easy, normal and legal to give kids the independence they need to grow into capable, confident, and happy adults. When we let go we… Let Grow.”

I have also joined the Let Grow movement, including signing the parent/child pledge shown below committing to supporting my children in engaging in meaningful, independent endeavors.

The sense of accomplishment and pride I see on my son and daughter’s faces when being trusted by me to contribute more and to handle “stretch” types of activities has been incredible. Even more so, however, is that after a very short time of my children stepping up, thanks to me stepping back, they are happier and stand taller, so to speak. You can see and sense their bolstered self confidence they quietly feel from rising to the responsibilities they have been tasked. That is to say, they are earning their self confidence and it shows!

I hope you will join me in considering how you, too, can further support the youth in your life to stretch and spread their wings, thereby earning the self confidence needed to rise to meet the road ahead of them.

Until next time, xoxo, WRW

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