Confident Children

Author – Gael Lindenfield

Age Range – 0-16+

Key words – promoting resilience

This is a book for any parent of any aged child. It provides practical and reassuring advice to help them raise happy, confident and self-assured children. It begins by acknowledging that being a perfect parent is an impossible task as there is no such thing. The book allows the reader to explore becoming a ‘good enough’ parent, which instantly gives the reader a sense of empowerment and control.

Lindenfield, a psychotherapist, makes this book an interesting and supportive read. She concentrates on practical steps that parents can take to help develop their children into assertive young people for their own survival and happiness. She states that parents must also look at their own experiences and begins with the idea that to instil confidence in your child you have to firstly feel confident about yourself.

The book is broken down into three parts. The first helps explain confidence, the second is based around how to help increase the self-esteem within your child and the final section covers communication and improving the confidence and assertiveness of your child.

The author does not aim to create an unrealistic super-confident child. She acknowledges that every situation and every child is different and this book provides what may most usefully be seen as another viewpoint, rather than an answer.