In this episode of Little Feet Community podcast, we speak with author and clinical physchologist Dr. Emily Edlynn about critical areas of child development that impact self confidence. We discuss Dr. Edlynn's publication Autonomy Supportive Parenting, a user friendly guide that offers easy to implement action items and techniques that will help support strengthened confidence and autonomy for your child (and your students). Her book is a must read for all those working with children. She is also one of the hosts of Psychologists Off the Clock, a podcast about the science and practice of living well.

Takeaways:

So, research shows that it’s important to support a child in three essential categories:

• helping your child develop autonomy
• helping your child develop competence and a feeling of agency, (I love Emily’s quote, “Competence breeds competence.”)
• helping your child feel truly connected, valued, with a sense of belonging in their relationships.

Remember, by implementing practices that strengthen autonomy, you can enable your child to feel confident making choices, confidence embracing their freedoms, agency to to explore new things and take on challenges and confidence to live in a manner that aligns with their own personal values. Here was another great Emily quote: “Do less so that they can grow more.”

Three good techniques through which to develop these goals is

• helping your child develop a healthy relationship with mistakes, accepting that they are a part of learning and growing.
• use language that validates their misgivings, feelings and experiences while also communicating your confidence in their abilities, and
• employing scaffolding techniques to meet them at their current skill level and then nudge them gently beyond that level.

If you are like me, you benefit from real world examples of what these techniques look like. Part 2 of Dr. Edlynn’s book, Autonomy Supportive Parenting is chock full of such examples. And, if you order the book through the link we’ve included in our episode description, a small percentage of the sale will go to the creation of more podcast episodes like this one.

Book link: https://amzn.to/4kmmzfP