How to build a child's self-confidence: can tutoring help?

Here at Progress Parade, we are online special education tutors and educational therapists. To make sure our students are matched with their perfect specialist we have a phone call with each interested family to make sure we understand exactly what they're looking for. One of our main goals during this call is to understand why a family is reaching or what they're hoping tutoring will accomplish.

Sometimes parents have really specific goals like, "teach my child to read", "please help my teenager to pass math class!" or "give my middle schooler strategies to start turning in some homework". We love a nice measurable goal like those examples. It makes it really easy to know if we're accomplishing what we set out to accomplish!

That said, a student's needs can't always be described so concisely. Some goals, especially for our students who need educational therapy, are harder to pin down. One goal we hear over and over again is to "improve confidence". Our parents tell us their children are scared of making mistakes, or that they feel like the dumbest student in the class, or that they’re too nervous to even try at all. It brings up the question:

Can tutoring help a child's self-confidence? If so, how? These are the questions we'll be exploring in today's article.

What causes low academic self-confidence?

There is no simple answer to this question. Some students struggle and struggle but they just keep getting back up and putting themselves back out there. Some students have above average skill but feel they need to do perfectly and won't try anything that might lead to a "mistake". That said, there are a few things that can contribute to low academic self-confidence (most of these are pretty understandable):

• having below grade level skills in an academic area

• repeatedly struggling with an academic skill

• getting made fun of by classmates

• failing classes

• receiving repeated implicit or explicit feedback that they "should know something" that they don't understand (it's important that any feedback focuses on supporting them to grow the skills they need and isn't delivered harshly, angrily, or impatiently)

It's usually no one's fault (and definitely not the student's fault!) when a student is struggling to understand a skill. There are things that can be done to support them though!

“Parents tell us their children are scared of making mistakes, or that they feel like the dumbest student in the class, or that they’re too nervous to even try at all”

Foundation of self-confidence in school and academics: the right relationship

One of the first components that's important to building self-confidence is a great, trusted relationship with a teacher or tutor. If your child is struggling with low self-confidence, they may be feeling all sorts of ways about schoolwork (e.g.sad, nervous, and anxious). Some ways to help a student  know it's safe to trust are to express sincere interest in their interests, build in time to learn about one another, and make it clear to them that we really see their strengths and unique gifts. Some students build rapport and feel safe very quickly and others need much more time. There's no right or wrong! It's also really important to be mindful of the way feedback is given. Every student is unique in their needs, but many students with low self-confidence have a common need to receive gentle, patient feedback. 

It is also really important to make sure we're starting at the right level of challenge and find a task that the student can do successfully with some support. Experiencing some success early in the tutoring/teaching relationship can go a long way towards building trust and helping a child feel more confident. It may be hard to find that "just right" challenge. Tackling a really easy task won't usually result in any sense of accomplishment and tackling a task that's too hard is likely to lead to more failure feelings. If you want to read more on finding the "just right" level of challenge, check out work on the zone of proximal development.

Through online educational therapy and special education tutoring, we can meet a student where they're at and work through the challenging material at their pace.

Building the right skills to improve self-confidence in school and academics

Now that your child has a solid relationship with someone they trust and we've identified the "just right" level of challenge, we're ready for another important component to building self-confidence: mastering some new skills. 

Low self-confidence often (not always) starts with having below grade level skills or perceiving "I'm stupid", "bad at math", or "the dumbest person in my class". Hopefully a great relationship with a special education tutor or educational therapist will start to help them feel safe enough to try some stuff that seems hard, so now it's time to start building the skills!

This is where the instructional component of tutoring can really work wonders (side note: we think of effective tutoring as having both important relational and instructional components. Your student has to trust us and be willing to work with us in order for this to work, but we also have to know our stuff when it comes to teaching!). At Progress Parade, we make sure your teacher is a whiz in your student's goal area. That means, they've got specialized training, lots of experience, and tons of tips and tricks to help the material finally click for your student.

With repeated practice and consistent tutoring over time, we often see students' skills start to improve in the areas that were formerly very challenging for them. Many times, a huge side benefit of the improved skills is improved confidence!

“Some ways to help a student  know it's safe to trust are to express sincere interest in their interests, build in time to learn about one another, and make it clear to them that we really see their strengths and unique gifts.”

My child's still struggling with low confidence

Sometimes even with a great teacher relationship and improved skills, a child may still struggle with low confidence. We often tell parents that there is no way to tutor confidence directly, we have to work indirectly on confidence through building skills and relationships. 

If we've tried all of that and your child is still struggling, it may be time to seek out the help of other professionals like therapists or psychiatrists. There may be some underlying issues like an anxiety disorder or depression which may need some treatment as well. We recently wrote an article summarizing different kinds of professionals who support students with ADHD. Most of this list could also be relevant to children struggling with any kind of mental health challenge!

If you'd like to discuss your child's challenges with academics or self-confidence, we hope you'll book a consultation with us today!

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