If self-efficacy is defined as a person’s belief in their ability to accomplish the tasks they set out to do and one of the ways to instill a sense of self-efficacy in your child is to give them the opportunity to master as many tasks as possible where does that leave all the helicopter, lawn mower and good intentioned parents out there?

I believe it leaves them standing next to their children instead of taking over for them. Let me explain. Most parents hate to see their children suffer. Whether it be a difficult task, an upsetting encounter or … you name it. The instinct is to say let me help you. But what does help mean? Is help taking over and doing what needs to be done? Or is help standing next to your child and saying, “Ok, let’s try this again” and standing next to your child while they try again and maybe again and maybe again? Remember when your child started to walk and fell down. Did you jump in and tell him to sit down, not to bother to try again or did you offer your hands so they could hold on while they tried it again.

I believe that the best way to teach your child to be self-efficacious and to have great self-esteem is to stand next to your child, to offer them your hands. What I mean by standing next to your child is being there for your child, being a resource, a kind smile, a gentle encouragement, a warm hug, but not robbing your child of their opportunities of mastery by taking over for them when they are struggling. I know most parents take over in good faith, their hearts are in a great place but the result, the message they send their child when they do this is not conducive to self-efficacy. The message they send is, “You can’t do this, I can, it’s not worth trying (no need to persist).” Standing next to your child on the other hand is saying, “I believe in you, I’m here for you and will help you if you need (not take over) and will be here until you achieve what you want and you got this.” Keep going, keep trying, it’s worth it, you can do it, I’ll be here next to you. That’s the difference between standing next to your child and taking over.

Starting today, when your child struggles, where will you choose to stand?

In all of my years working with parents I’ve never met a parent who doesn’t want their child to be happy and have good self-esteem. What I find curious about this is how parents go about making it happen. I believe most people have many misconceptions about what happiness is and isn’t and how to achieve it. Needless to say self-esteem is an even bigger mystery.

Self-esteem is defined as the regard a person has for themselves. It’s an overall feeling of one’s self-worth. Self-efficacy is defined as a person’s belief in their ability to accomplish a task, in their ability to get things done. Needless to say we don’t expect people to believe they are self-efficacious across all domains. However, the more domains in which a person feels self-efficacious, the more positive an outcome. The theory of self-efficacy was originally proposed by psychologist Albert Bandura in the 1970’s. Self-efficacy predicts self-esteem. I believe if you want your child to have good self-esteem one way to do this is by fostering self-efficacy.

How does self-efficacy relate to self-esteem? Well think about it, if you know or feel pretty confident that you can get things done, I would say it’s pretty safe to say you are going to have high regard for yourself. When you don’t question your ability, when you are open to trying even if you could fail, you most likely will experience high self-esteem.

How do you instill a sense of self-efficacy in your children? If self-efficacy is defined as a person’s belief in their ability to achieve a task then it would seem to make sense that the best way to instill a sense of self-efficacy would be to put a child in as many situations of mastery as possible. And… when a child fails, to send the message that failure is no excuse for giving up. When a child fails it’s an opportunity to say, “Great, what did you learn and what will you do differently next time?” Modeling self-efficacy is also a good way to instill self-efficacy. When a child observes their primary caregivers successfully completing tasks the child tends to learn to believe they too can master the challenges they face.