If you could give your daughter one quality that would most enhance her chance for leading a successful life–what would it be? Many experts say the greatest gift is positive self-belief. It turns out that a mom’s level of self-confidence and how she expresses herself enhances or sabotages her daughter’s self-beliefs. Here are five Mom Confidence Builders that can boost your daughter’s confidence as well:
1. Find Confident Role Models
A study found that a mother’s own confidence level was far more powerful determiner on her child’s self-esteem than her occupation, income, education, religion and even IQ. One quick test is ask yourself: “If my child’s self-beliefs were only based on my words and actions, what would she believe about herself?” Your answer should guide what you model and how you interact with your daughter.
Mom Confidence Builder: Find a female role model such as J.R. Rowling, Michelle Obama, or your great-aunt Harriet. Share why you admire her and encourage your child to seek out strong women to copy and look up to. (Hopefully, you’ll make the list!)
2. Change Your Self Talk
Mothers with poor self-beliefs often bombard themselves with a steady stream of derogatory messages. Self-talk is a critical part of how we acquire self-beliefs. Research indicates that 85 percent of the time we talk, we’re speaking to ourselves and those inside messages help or harm our confidence as well as our daughters.
Mom Confidence Builder: Start saying more positive messages about yourself so your child overhears. You may feel “strange” at first, but you’ll be boosting your confidence by reducing negativity, and helping your daughter use positive self-talk and be less critical of herself.
3. Change One Thing
From our height to our eye color – we are never satisfied with ourselves. Obviously, there are things we can’t change–but there are things we can tweak, which in turn, can send a great message to our daughters: “I accept there are things I can’t change, but if there’s one small switch that makes me feel better, I’m doing it!”
Read More: Michele Borba, micheleborba.com
