Children begin to develop their self-confidence at a young age. Their early experiences create the building blocks foundation for their confidence as they grow into a teenager and young adult. Building greater self confidence is a fantastic way to arm children with the tools to help them manoeuvre the difficulties of growing up.

Sport Psychology says that children who feel confident in their abilities and who believe that success is possible are far more likely to achieve highly, because of that self-belief. And when a task or challenge maybe doesn’t go as well as the child hoped, being confident will help them to learn from their mistakes and want to give it another shot.

One of the best ways in which you can help to boost your child’s self-confidence is through playing sports.

Definition of Confidence In Sport

Sport confidence is a term used to describe the belief that athletes have in their ability to be successful in sport. Athletes who have high sport confidence not only tend to perform better in sport, but their self confidence in general is higher. The same goes for children to routinely take part in sports.

At We Make Footballers, we aim to use sport as a tool to build the confidence of children - whether they plan to become an elite athlete or are simply joining for the fun of it.

Encouragement is a key tool when it comes to building confidence. If a child is made to feel that they’ve done something well or are on the right path towards learning a new football skill (which is impressing the adults around them) then their confidence can take a huge boost.

The nature of football and practising can hugely improve a child’s confidence as they will see their own improvement. If a kid has put in a lot of time and effort on the training ground to master something, such as shooting with their weaker foot, then the encouragement they receive while doing so will give them the confidence to take on other challenges across various areas of life – not just on the football pitch.

In this article, we'll go over the ways that Football can help build a child's confidence, and 8 ways you can encourage their growth.

Personal Success Breeds Confidence

Nothing gives a boost to confidence like tasting success. That can either be through the sort of individual achievement that we’ve already mentioned when talking about encouragement - such as learning something new - or through winning as a team.

When a child is part of a winning team on the pitch, it does wonders for their self-belief. Knowing that they’ve contributed to the success of the collective helps boost their confidence, giving them the knowledge that they can make a difference to those around them.

Football Helps Children Learn from Their Mistakes 

Every child makes mistakes - as even the best of them would - but they would always need someone to help them learn from these mistakes in a way that it won't hurt their confidence and self-esteem.

As mentioned above, personal success breeds confidence, while repeated personal failure diminishes it. And so It's incredibly important for children to see mistakes and "failures" as opportunities to learn and grow. If we notice children beginning to get down on themselves for their mistakes, our coaches apply appropriate stress management interventions to help children continue to have fun while learning from their mistakes. This is something that our coaches are taught to instil in our young athletes from the very beginning.

On the face of it, making mistakes may not seem the best way to build confidence. Sometimes though, trying and failing at something helps a child learn. When they are then successful next time, that can do wonders for their self-esteem.

Take that Cruyff Turn scenario. Say a child has been practising it in training, the opportunity arises to try it in a game situation, but it does not work and possession is lost. Rather than criticise the fact that the skill did not work out this time our coaches will praise the fact that the player attempted the skill in the first place.  The child then goes away, practices again with their coach and next time, the Cruyff Turn is a complete success, leaving an opponent bamboozled.

The child’s confidence receives a huge boost from the improved outcome. It makes them more willing to try new things and also removes the fear of failure; whilst they might not do it right the first time, by working out what went wrong and practising they know they can get there eventually.

Having the confidence to make mistakes and a belief in the value of perseverance is an important lesson to carry through life.

If a player misplaces a pass or attempts a piece of skill that doesn’t come off in a game situation, they will then go away and work on what went wrong with their coaches. Next time a similar scenario arises, they may instead pull off the move successfully or make the right decision having learnt from their initial mistake.

It's important that our young athletes feel confident to try new things and we can help remove the fear of failure. Sure, they might get it wrong the first time around but with hard work and perseverance, they will get it right eventually. That’s an important lesson to carry through life.

Football Can Help Keep Children Fit

As with any human being, being fit and active can help a child’s confidence in two major ways. The first is through the mental boost that regular exercise offers, and the second is its physical effects.

When we exercise, our brain releases feel-good endorphins – in the adult world, it’s known as “runner’s high” – which makes us feel good. That’s why regular exercise is recommended as a counter to stress, depression, anxiety and a range of other mental health problems. In this sense though, a child playing football is getting the exercise they need to stay a happier person and confidence goes hand-in-hand with happiness.

Being able to take part in a game of football can also improve their confidence in social situations as they will be able to take part in the group activity and engage with other children around them. 

From a physical point of view, a fitter and stronger child tends to have more confidence. They feel good in themselves, knowing that they are at the peak of their powers. Football can assist with not only this, but with developing important coordination and agility skills as well. The sport can help your child get the daily exercise that they need as well as boosting confidence at the same time.

Sport is fantastic for teaching children many transferable skills such as self-confidence and we have identified the reasons as to why football in particular can help. If you are looking for a safe, fun and friendly environment in which your child can play, improve their footballing ability and boost their confidence then please try one of our weekly sessions. The benefits football has on a child’s confidence.

Children’s football has many benefits, some obvious and others not. One of those that fall into the latter category is the impact that playing football with a coaching company such as We Make Footballers can have on a child’s confidence, which in turn plays an important role in their long-term development.

When a child has confidence in their abilities and believes they can succeed, they are more likely to do so. Confidence also has an important role to play in understanding failure; a child with confidence ingrained is better equipped to deal with the setbacks that are part and parcel of growing up, making them willing to give whatever did not go to plan another go having learned from their mistakes.

Here are some of how playing football can have a positive impact on your child’s confidence levels.

Football Gives a Child a Chance to Feel Successful

“Personal success breeds confidence” is one of the most used footballing cliches out there, partly because it is true. Children’s football is not all about winning, but the saying still applies in its way as the success that the sport can help a child feel also creates confidence.

That does not come from winning, but from achieving. When a child has spent training sessions learning how to ‘Cruyff Turn’ or to shoot with their weaker foot and they suddenly pull it off, that success helps them feel confident and build self-esteem.

It also teaches the value of hard work. No child will succeed straight away at every aspect of football – practice makes it permanent to throw in another quote – and that is a lesson learned once a child masters a skill they have pushed hard to achieve.

Football Offers Children Encouragement

One of the best ways to boost confidence is through encouragement - and young athletes who play football with We Make Footballers will certainly get plenty of that. When a child is made to feel that they have done something well or are progressing towards a specific target, then their confidence grows massively.

From playing a through ball with their weaker foot to scoring their first headed goal, every time a child is congratulated by their coaches or teammates or achieves something new, they build up the confidence to take on the next challenge. Encouraging positive self talk and teamwork alongside improving their sports performance will not only help young athletes feel confident, but will give them the tools to manage future mistakes and work well with others.

“A kid who lacks confidence will be reluctant to try new things”, says Carl Pickhardt, a psychologist and parenting expert.

8 Ways You Can Encourage Sport Confidence in Your Children

Understanding the benefits that sports has on self confidence is only part of the equation. Building sport confidence in your children is a team effort - the team of which consists of the parents, the coaches, and the team members. One of the best ways that we can help children is to encourage positive attitudes towards new skill learning and even the occasional poor performance.

With a combination of the following rules, we can help children feel completely confident in their ability to learn new skills, face new challenges, and see failures and losses as tools for growth.

1. Appreciate effort no matter if they win or lose.

At WMF we recognise that if you applaud the effort a child is making and not just celebrate success then more confidence is built over the long term.  The secret is to eliminate the fear of failure because skill mastery grows whether your child wins or loses.  Self doubt is the enemy and ambition and willingness to try are the building blocks to creativity.  This is why we encourage positive self statements and encourage children whether they achieve their goals or not.

The greatest success stories are also the ones that have failed the most.  When you overcome enough failures, you'll generate confidence towards facing them. If the failures can be seen as simply a stepping stone on the path to success then they can also be celebrated!  At We Make Footballers, we appreciate the effort no matter if they win or lose.

2. Encourage practice to build competence.

We believe that a child's self-esteem will be improved if their competence improves.  So if you become good at something your self-esteem is raised.  Therefore we encourage practice to build this competence.  The trick here is to make sure you are practising the right things!  As Bobby Robson once said ‘practice makes permanent.'  So we need to ensure that we are coaching the children in the correct methods so that they can practice in the right way. 

It has been proven many times over that if you practise something for many hours you will inevitably improve (provided you are practising the correct way!).  If you ever get a chance to read Malcolm Gladwell's book ‘Outliers’.  To paraphrase Gladwell ‘it takes 10,000 hours of intense practice to achieve mastery of a complex skill’. So with enough practice, you can and will master any task. 

Peak performance can be accomplished by simply building competence. With this in mind, We Make Footballers spend many hours creating drills and session plans that encourage repetition and encourage the children to practice and progress gradually in their skillset. As the many athletes become more proficient in a particular task, their sporting performance increases resulting in high self confidence.

3. Let them figure out problems by themselves.

Allowing children to problem solve on their own will develop confidence and erode fear of failure, as well as dependency on adults. If parents, coaches, teachers etc make the decisions for children they will never learn how to problem solve on their own. Children should experience a few B’s and C’s in the quest for A’s rather than achieve straight A’s all the time. At some point, these young adults will have to face the world on their own and developing the tools to cope should be the aim of anyone coaching or teaching them. 

If you have a chat with one of our coaches you will find out that our sessions are designed to let the game coach the children rather than the coaches constantly solving the problems on the players' behalf. So we set the session up in such a way as to let the players make the decisions. We guide, encourage and demonstrate of course but the players feel that they are in control of their decision making and figuring out the problem themselves. Not only does this help to build greater self confidence in sport, but it can help to boost one's confidence in life as well.

4. Let them act their age.

 This is a big one for We Make Footballers!  While elite athletes are great to look up to, not every child is in the market for a sporting career. In order to promote proper sport confidence (and self confidence) children must be allowed to be children.

Children shouldn't expect to become star athletes during their first few years of playing. In fact, having these expectations can hinder a child's ability to learn from mistakes and diminish their performance accomplishments.

Much conscious effort is put into celebrating small successes along the way

If children see that only performing as well as an adult is a success then they will be discouraged to try as this outcome is unrealistic. As discussed throughout this blog we need to ensure that success is measured in many ways. We need to make sure that there are mini successes along the journey as striving to meet advanced age expectations can reduce confidence. 

5. Encourage curiosity.

We like to encourage the children to ask questions as this shows they realise that they don’t know everything. Often children with low self confidence will keep quiet if they don't understand something - this is usually because they've been discouraged to ask questions or made to feel silly. This is why we try to foster an attitude of curiosity within our young athletes, and encourage one's ability to express that they don't understand and ask questions in order to learn a skill successfully.

Understanding that they don’t know everything means they are easier to teach and are more open to learning. This is a great quality to take into adulthood as we can all learn something new every day. Every day’s a school day!!

6. Give them new challenges.

Creating an environment where small victories are achievable will add to building children's confidence. So we can set new smaller challenges that children can accomplish on the path to larger accomplishments. Touching the ball with every part of your foot is on the path to improved concentration skills and ball mastery, which in turn is on the path to becoming a superstar dribbler of the ball. Our coaches often try to boost confidence in children by telling them that the new challenge ahead is within their capabilities.

Challenging the children to dribble with the sole of their feet or the inside, and outside of both feet are challenges that everyone can and will achieve.  Celebrating these mini successes helps in building children's self-confidence. Mastering the ball with the various parts of the foot then helps them to achieve their next challenge of dribbling through the cones.  Each layer or milestone is first set up as a challenge and then with every success, it teaches the children what they can and will achieve.   The lesson is that with practice and effort, they can achieve their goals.

7. Encourage positive self talk.

Mistakes happen! We Make Footballers are all about useful feedback and making suggestions as nothing erodes confidence like telling the children they are doing a bad job. We treat mistakes as building blocks for learning.  We let the children make mistakes so that they can figure out how to approach the same situation differently the next time.  

We don’t want to eliminate mistakes but rather treat them as opportunities for new learnings. The best moments come when the child works something out on their own having failed a few times before.  These eureka moments are brilliant for a child's development and live long in their memory.  These moments build on the child's confidence as they realise they can do it and that they can also work it out on their own.

Bonus Exercise for Promoting Confidence

Encourage your children to visualise their past performance success, and potential future performance accomplishments. Visualisation is a tool that is historically used in sports psychology to enhance confidence and improve sports performance. You're brain

8. Share your knowledge and teach them what you know how to do.

We advise and help them open the door to new methods and experiences.  We establish the correct techniques and then allow them to practice and develop to continually improve. As role models to the children, our coaches are aware that when we demonstrate a new skill or technique and succeed they see that it can be done and believe they can do it too! Experiencing new things is fundamental to a child's development and helps them develop confidence in the wider world.

We are looking to give just the right amount of assistance when our players face adversity. Too much help and the child doesn’t build up that resilience we talked about. The key is to help them as much as they want to help themselves.  That way they have a key role in the success achieved.

It takes courage to try something new so we will praise new ideas and skills.  If our players are trying to attack in a new or different way this is to be encouraged and celebrated. 

 WMF is here to help! If you would like to give one of our sessions a try please get in touch with your nearest training academy to sign up for a free trial.