Lesson 31º

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sense of personal competence

You need to feel that you are sufficiently prepared and ready to face up to any situation that presents itself. You need to feel that although you don’t know all of the answers you can look for them and find them. This gives you the “feeling of power” which you get from your own knowledge and positive experiences.

A child acquires this sense of power when he learns to resolve for himself a certain number of problems and conflicts that present themselves. This is the consequence of making decisions which lead him to satisfactory results. He finds out where to find the resources that he needs, he learns how to use them, how to find out the relevant information and how to make good use of it.

You need to be careful that you don’t over protect your children in conflictive situations. You need to encourage them to face up to risks and overcome them on their own. It is important that children become independent as soon as possible.

An unfortunate route to take is one when the parent doesn’t worry about their child or the parent doesn’t pay any attention to their child and thus he abandons his own initiative; on the contrary, there are parents that overprotect their children, without making them feel the necessary affection, moral support, recognition and feedback that allows them to confront possible mistakes which form part of the learning curve instead of considering them failures.

Many children, the weakest, give up and loose interest. Others, the most equipped, manage to motivate themselves, although they develop a survival system which means they separate from others and reject other people’s collaboration and support.

A third route, equally as negative, is setting your children overwhelming tasks. Often parents that have these demands aren’t even available to help their children to fulfil these objectives.

There is a route that allows the development of a child’s competence, security, motivation and self concept. There are also various routes for the parents to help their children with this route. One of these routes is to encourage your child making him see that he is capable of learning and acting in the correct way in different situations. Always make sure that you support him, give him feedback and encouragement.

This way, the child will feel capable and independent but he will know that if he asks his parents for help, they are available to help him at any time he asks.

Learning to ask is another factor to consider. You need to know how to say no, if we think this is the best for the child. If it is necessary, you need to say no openly and give specific reasons with a dialogue so that he understands. Doing this the child checks the support and confidence that his parents have in him and in his capacities.

Once the child has finished the task, it is important to check that he has been done well and recognize the effort, intention and skills shown; there is always a detail which he can concentrate on to make his effort more effective.

As a result the child will feel proud of the job that he has done. He will recognize the value of finishing a task. This in turn will cause:

A more positive self-concept.

The child to make new objectives as he realises that he is able to face up and solve problems.

The capacity to recognize and use the means and resources at hand in a more effective way.

Prove that he has the moral support and confidence of his parents when he needs it.

The child to be more certain of himself, feel more secure not only as a person but also as a member of the group.

The development of his sense of personal competence. He will feel motivated to re-start the process every day, without fearing failure. As he has been capable of resolving a problem, failing on the second occasion doesn’t seem so threatening for his self-concept and less still on successive occasions.