Self Confidence in The Classroom

Self Confidence In The Classroom

Are you worried that your teen’s lack of self confidence is setting them back in the classroom? If so, the first thing you’ll want to do is try to figure out what’s behind any lack of self confidence and address that. If you keep pressuring her to ask questions without helping her with the cause it will most likely backfire.

Some questions to ask yourself: Is it possible that your teen has attention issues? Does she have any learning challenges or visual processing issues? You’ll want to explore these questions thoroughly. Once you’ve learned more you can decide if the help of a professional is necessary.

Put A Time Limit On It

In the meantime, we suggest timeboxing the homework! Leave enough time afterward to do something fun that she enjoys doing. If you keep the narrative on homework, and her struggle, it’s only going to affect her self esteem, and you can avoid that by de-emphasizing the importance of homework to begin with.

Self confidence is a topic that comes up in many families, and we talk about it in this Tips on Teens:

“I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to help my daughter understand and finish her homework. It ends up taking up a lot of time every night. We both get frustrated with each other, and then there’s no time left for anything she actually enjoys doing. The problem seems to be that she’s just too timid to ask more questions in class. I think she probably is worried she’s going to look stupid in front of her friends if she does. How do I get her to see it’s the smart kids who do ask the questions?”