Developing confidence and self-esteem

Following from my earlier post about my suspicion of H being bullied, I made a call to the school. It turns out that I was being paranoid after all. Well a mom can't be faulted for being over protective of her kids right?!! Anyway, I asked the principal about H and how he is like in school, and whether he has any friends.

I always knew that H is somewhat shy, and I really wanted to know if he participates in school and that he enjoys school. H is always so cheery and chatty at home and I wonder if he is the same in school. I mean, he doesn't resist going to school except for that one morning recently and maybe another 1-2 times in between since he started school in Jan this year. But whenever I asked him about school, about what he did in school, he will say he doesn't know. If I rephrased and asked if he enjoyed his day in school, he will say yes but no more than that. I just can't get him to elaborate. It's not like he doesn't know how to talk. Even his 2 year-old lil sis can tell me what she did in nursery.

So this is what I learnt from H's Teacher J. H is really good in class - he participates, he speaks up and he even helps his friends in their work. This is because he is ahead of his classmates academically and so he is confident of his ability. However, outside the classroom he tends to be more reserved. Teacher J says H is afraid to make mistakes and he seeks approval. For example, while waiting to be picked up, most kids will just play freely in the school compound. H will not do so unless the teacher urges him to go ahead. It's as though he's afraid that he will be doing something 'wrong'. I'm not sure if this is simply about following rules. I read somewhere recently that 4-year olds adore rules - in fact this can sometimes border on the obsessive. I hope this is just a phase. I can't have H shy away whenever he's faced with uncertainty or challenge. He needs to learn that it's ok to make mistakes and that he will learn from these mistakes and that mummy and daddy will always be there for him and that we will always love him no matter what.

So once again, momster me will have to come up with bedtime stories to reinforce these important life lessons. I find that stories are a great way to impart life lessons since kids love stories. Thinking up stories do require some creativity though - they cannot be too direct else the kid will know that you're referring to him/her. Hence they need to be cleverly disguised as an interesting story - a story they can relate to and sympathise with. After the story, we'll then discuss about what the little boy/girl/animal did, what else could he/she/it have done, etc. I will share some of these stories another time...