Self-efficacy and Children''s Feelings

Parents help develop self-efficacy when they acknowledge and respect their child's feelings. When a parent does this a close relationship can be formed between them. The child learns to trust the parent while the parent provides encouragement and support. It's important for a parent to empathize with the child and recognize the child's feelings are real and help them work through them.

When a child fails or is scared to do an activity a parent can say something like, "I know this is scary but this is how we're going to work through it and I'll be here every step of the way." For example, the first time a child goes down the slide by themselves can be scary. The parent walks by the side of it staying by the child until they sit down, then the parent stands at the bottom and catches them. The parent has acknowledged the child's feelings, helped them work through them and stayed with them every step of the way. They provided encouragement and support and helped the child achieve a task they saw as difficult.

One of the ways I helped my child work through a difficult feeling that helped her self-efficacy is watch her walk next door. Our neighbors had a child the same age as my child and they played a lot together. Only she wouldn't walk over there by herself. I helped her work through her feelings of being scared and developed her self-efficacy by standing on the deck and watching her walk over and not going back inside until she was in their house. Then I just stood at the deck door to watch her until she was in their house. Then one day she told me she didn't need me to watch, that she would be okay. Her self-efficacy in that area had developed enough that she no longer needed me to help. These seem like small, insignificant things, but they are big to a chid, they are important to a child and they are important steps in buildingtheir self-efficacy.