Building Self-Confidence

Don’t you love watching those little moments of self-confidence growing in your kids?

I had one of those moments today.  For the past six weeks, the kids participated in a sailing class.  Sims loves sailing, and he makes it look easy and fun.  So much so that Sawyer and Parks asked if they could take the class this spring with him.

Being new to sailing and younger than Sims, they learned to sail on smaller boats than Sims.  The smaller boats required them to sail independently.  Neither of the kids enjoyed sailing on these boats.  In fact, I wasn’t sure that they were going to complete the class.  Luckily on Tuesday, they took a make-up class that changed their opinions of sailing completely around.

The best part came tonight.  The class was small so the instructor decided to take out the bigger boats which required two people to each boat.  Sawyer started out the class very nervous and unsure of herself.  She was excited to have another person on the boat with her.  What she didn’t know was that her partner was just as new to sailing as she was or more so!  Tonight I watched as she skippered the boat, performed problem-solving, and instructed her crew.  She found out how much she really did know about sailing.

To many people, Sawyer appears to be very self-confident.  We know her at home to doubt herself at times.  As she gets older and is on her own more, I want her to know how to trust her instincts and to be confident in who she is and what she does.  I see her confidence growing at the barn each week, but that is an area that she feels comfortable.  I enjoyed watching her rise to moment tonight in a situation that she did not feel comfortable in and with people who she does not know well.

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