The Confidence Tool is about finding confidence in who we are and in who God created us to be. To know and be confident in the gifts and strengths we’ve been given and use them to the best of our ability to bring love and joy to our family. Being confident in ourselves will help us rise up to our position of loving authority that God has put us in with more passion and purpose. Today’s kids need confident parents—confident in their faith, confident in themselves, and confident in their role as leaders of their family teams. Make no mistake that God is using our entire family units (our spouse, our kids, etc.) to mold and shape us to be more like Him. Yes–He will use our strengths to serve our families if we let Him, but He will also use our families to grow us in our weaknesses.

Here are a few exercises to try to help you grow in confidence as a parent:

• Exercise #1: Write down your strengths. How can you use each strength in parenting your kids?  Example: I am a good teacher. I can teach my kids more often the life skills they need.
• Exercise #2: Write down areas of your parenting (or life) where you feel you lack confidence. What can you do to gain more confidence in that area? Example: I struggle with giving in when my kids throw fits. I can choose to make a decision and stick to it because I know that they will respect me more when I do even if they throw a fit. 
• Exercise #3: Keep a journal of lies you believe about yourself—things that rob you of the confidence that God has given you. Next to each lie, write the truth (you can even write a bible verse to combat that lie.) Examples:
  • LIE–I am not equipped to handle the challenges that my kids bring. Somedays I just can’t do it. 
  • TRUTH–I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. God has equipped me with what I need and if I feel ill-equipped, I can pray for wisdom and He will give it to me.
  • LIE–Someone else is more equipped to handle my children than I am. I’m just going to send them to day care.
  • TRUTH–My children are a gift from God to me. There is no one who knows my kids more intimately than I do. And even though it’s hard, I can partner with God, with my spouse (or teacher or pastor or friend), and with my kids to solve any problem as a team!
• Exercise #4: Identify 3 specific weaknesses in your personality. Write them down. Next to each weakness, identify how God is using your family to improve this weakness. If you don’t see any improvement yet, ask God to bring you wisdom on how to be more like Him in that area.
  • For example: Weakness #1: Impatience—Kids are not quick. They are also not quick to learn. Parenting is a slow day-to-day sometimes minute-to-minute process of patiently teaching and training my kids—working as a team with them—to be kind, loving, respectful, responsible, and resilient adults.
  • Lord, thank you for growing me in patience as I watch my kids learn to be all that You created them to be. Continue to fill me with patience–especially when my expectations are that things are to be done quicker than my kids are ready to do them. 
• Exercise #5: If you really feel hopeless or lack confidence every day in your parenting, please don’t let it continue day-in and day-out. Please get help! We don’t get do-overs in parenting (or in life) so it’s important that you love yourself and gain that confidence in the wonderful person God created you to be so you can love your kids, unite your family, and enjoy life even more! Please call a counselor (we can recommend a few Champaign/Urbana, IL area ones if you’d like), pray with your pastor, or even contact us for one-on-one Life Purpose Coaching or Parenting Coaching.

I cry when I think about how lost I used to be. Going from a middle school science teacher for eleven years to a stay-at-home mom took a toll. Trading in science beakers for poopy diapers was harder than I thought it would be. Becoming a parent was a hard road–almost 5 years of infertility–but being a parent was even harder. I had no idea what I was doing and I felt I had no confidence in myself nor in my abilities–and the older my kids got (especially those toddler years), the harder it got.  I quickly realized that one of the greatest gifts I could give my kids was a parent who was more confident in herself, in her faith, and in her purpose in this world.  Sometimes I feel selfish when I invested in personal growth things like counseling, classes, moms’ groups, or events, but I believed that when I gained confidence in me…my kids, my family, and my husband would benefit. And I also believed that the more confidence I had in myself, the more confidence would be reflected onto my children…in their lives…and in themselves. 

 

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. Psalm 139: 13-14 NLT

Lord, You know us so well. You created us for a purpose. You know the gifts and strengths that you have given us to use with passion and purpose in this world. Help us to use those gifts with our family–to bless them. We know that when we use our gifts to bless others, we will bless ourselves and glorify You. Lead us in a living a life of confidence in how You created us and in who You created us to be!