Raising a confident child is difficult at the best of times — it’s even harder for single fathers. A recent study found that children of single parents are more submissive and aggressive than their two-parent peers. It also reported that single-parent children are less assertive than their classmates and are more likely to look beyond their parents for support and guidance. These behaviors are all characteristics of children with low confidence.
However, there are steps you can take as a single father to give your child their best chance of blossoming into a confident, emotionally intelligent member of society.
Take Care of Yourself
Children are sponges. They observe your behavior and pick up on insecurities that you might not even realize you have. As your child’s primary role model, it’s important that you take a step back and assess how you approach the world and how your underlying insecurities might be impacting your child’s confidence.
One of the most common issues among men is body image insecurity. Between 20-40% of men have some kind of body image issue. Common sources of body image insecurity include hair loss, skin issues, and weight. These issues are exacerbated by the social image of men, which portrays heroes as lean, muscular figures while realistic bodies are, at best, comedic relief and extras.
To ensure you don’t pass on body image insecurities, embrace your body as it is and unsubscribe from any media which makes you feel bad about the way you look (for the record, body shaming does not work). That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make healthy choices, but you should make them for the right reasons — not because you feel shame about your body.
Empower Your Child
Raising a child who is independent, exhibits self-control, and is optimistic is difficult. It takes a lot of work and forward-thinking to empower your child and requires you to be intentional in the way you support them.
Educator and parent Sonya Phillips recommends that, as a parent, you should strive to use language which allows children to overcome struggles with confidence. For example, if your child struggles with something, teach them that failure is part of learning, and highlight the progress they’ve made. Phillips also recommends that parents avoid overcorrecting their child’s mistakes; this will actually harm their development. So, the next time you’re giving feedback to your child, focus on the positives and praise them for the efforts they’ve made.
It’s also important that you engage with social conversations like gender fluidity and racism with your child. It might seem intimidating, but if you can’t speak openly with your child about topics like gender, then they won’t feel comfortable expressing their ideas and thoughts to you.
The best way to ensure you empower your child to live openly is to educate yourself on contemporary social conversations like gender nonconformity. You might not think it’s necessary, but over 1.2 million Americans identify as non-binary, and 40% of the adult population think traditional binary labels are outdated.
If you don’t know where to begin, you can find role models like Dwayne Wade — whose daughter is transgender — who shows us all how we can hold our children and support their choices with grace and respect. You can also begin to understand gender by diving into theorists like Judith Butler — you’ll likely find that their opinions and ideas are often misrepresented by media targeted towards men.
Recognize Signs of Anxiety in Your Child
Disruptions in family structure can have a significant impact on children’s mental health. As a single parent, this means you need to recognize signs of anxiety and know how to manage your kid’s mental health struggles.
There are many triggers for anxiety in children, and understanding them will help your child work through the sources of their anxiety. So for, example, if your child finds visits to the dentist office stressful, you can utilize some frequently used techniques to calm them:
- Tell and Show: if you know what your child’s trigger is — like visiting a dentist’s office — you can help calm them down by calmly explaining what will happen and why it will be ok in the long run.
- Positive Reinforcement: the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry finds that positive reinforcement (like praise and rewards) helps children combat anxiety and leads to reduced anxiety.
- Distraction: sometimes no amount of praise and explanation will help you calm your child. On these occasions, it might be best to divert attention and distract your anxious child — just be sure you don’t rely too heavily on this technique, as it may create distrust in children.
Ultimately every child is different and managing their anxiety might take professional intervention. For both their sake and yours, don’t hesitate on getting help if you need it. Even if you are facing financial hardship, you can find help from your child’s school district or online resources like TherapyAid and eTherapyPro.
Grief and Your Child
If you’re a single dad, you and your child have likely been through the deep pain of separation or the loss of a partner. If the source of that pain is the loss of a partner, you need to help your child process their grief.
Carmel Breathnach — a writer whose work centers on the loss of her mother — gives single dads a guide to helping their children navigate grief. She writes that, although “Grief and anxiety have followed me into adulthood . . . but having a stable relationship with Dad when I needed it most, enabled me to thrive”. As a dad of a child who has lost a parent, the best way you can support them is to respect their feelings and find ways to provide them with consistent support which is honest, inclusive, and safe.
Get Help
Despite your best efforts and intentions, there may be a time where you simply can’t do it all. You can’t be in two places at once, you can’t always be positive, you can’t cook every meal, you can’t attend every game — and that’s okay.
Instead of overloading yourself with responsibility, try reaching out to your support system or seek professional help. Your friends and family are probably more happy to help than you imagine, and there is nothing wrong with employing a babysitter when you simply run out of hours in the day. If your child’s mental health struggles go beyond your ability to help them, then you should reach out to professional pediatricians and therapists who will be able to help your child.
Ultimately, raising a confident child is all about intentionality. By deliberately participating in the activities they enjoy and listening to their thoughts, you show your child that you care about who they are and who they are becoming.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Shutterstock