Moms' Buzz is happy to introduce our guest blogger, Rob Heller, founder of Boost Kids, a program aimed at improving children's self esteem, self-worth, and self-confidence.  Rob Heller wrote the following article for Moms' Buzz, which we think you will get good tips and insight from.  Enjoy.

What Makes Kids Confident and How Can Parents Help?
By Rob Heller - BOOST KIDS

Parents strive for their children to have a strong sense of self.  Academic or athletic successes are notable characteristics, but parents know that self-confidence is the most important trait their child can possess. Without it, it is harder for children to accomplish goals, resist peer pressure, or deal with adversity. Confidence may hold the key to a child’s happiness and career success.

Love and affection by family play a vital role in the development of a child but it is only a foundation on which their confidence can grow.  To strive ahead, kids need additional skills to aid them in social situations where they may not feel comfortable. People skills and a strong character are basic techniques that we take for granted.  A recent study by BOOSTKIDS, a people skills and confidence builder program for kids, showed that the ability to communicate properly accounts for 75% of an individual’s career success.  Clearly we need to place a greater emphasis on development when our children are young.

Why are People Skills and Character Development Skills Declining with Today’s Youth?

• Technology: Technological advances have provided kids with devices that increasingly isolate them from each other and decrease social interaction i.e. emailing, text messaging and video games. Unfortunately this has caused kids to lose the ability to develop important people skills.

• Pop Culture:  Unapologetic topics of today’s mass media, has caused disrespectfulness, defiance, and rejection of common courtesy to become the mainstream. Kids are growing up in a world of ESPN highlights and American Idol where it is acceptable to be rude and self-promoting.

• Academic Emphasis: No Child Left Behind means well to force American schools to advance children in basic skills such as math and science, but at the same time most school programs dedicated to developing people skills and character development are simply not the priority.

What can parents do to help?

• Emphasize These Skills on a Daily Basis: Parents, stress these skills everyday.  When greeting someone with your child make sure to point out that eye contact and a firm handshake will build immediate trust. This will help your child become familiar with using people skills.

• Be a Good Role Model: Kids notice how their parents conduct themselves in various situations. If you don’t show patience with a sales clerk, how can you expect your child to show patience with siblings?

• Introduce a Third Party or Independent Voice: Look for outside materials.  Kids, particularly teenagers, can tune out adults and by having a third party source it can help take the pressure and natural resistance of a teenager off the parent. It will reinforce what you are teaching and give them a chance to learn these key skills on their own.

Conclusion

Our fast paced society is leading to a generation of children that may not have the skills needed to feel good about themselves when faced with challenges, hardships and competition. By teaching and fostering our kids how to be better people and how to feel good, they will stand a greater chance to grow into adults who respect and are respected by others, who set and accomplish goals and are comfortable with themselves.

Robert D. Heller, founder and president of Boost Program for Kids, LLC. Boost Kids is a national program designed to increase children’s confidence through learning people skills and character development.  For more information please visit www.boostkids.com or email Stephanie Bird at sb@boostkids.com.

- The Moms' Buzz

To view the article on the Mom's Buzz website, click here.

How BoostKids Can Help:
BoostKids is a program that can help increase a child’s confidence by teaching social skills to children and building their character.  BoostKids has been and is currently being taught in schools, non-profit organizations, and after-school programs.  The program is now available as an at-home training program for children and their parents.  The key training tool of the BoostKids program is an interactive CD-ROM that shows kids the right-way and the wrong-way to handle social situations.  They learn from real kid actors in real-life scenerios! 

For more information about what’s included in BoostKids, click here. 

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