Kid Confidence: Help Your Child Make Friends, Build Resilience, and Develop Real Self-Esteem Paperback – January 2, 2019

This information packed book presents material in an easy-to-understand way and was so full of tips, I had to get a pack of page stickies to mark as a I went along--and that was just in the first few chapters. Excellent resource. Thank you!

All parents want to provide for their child and protect them. As an educational leader for over twenty years, I believe Eileen Kennedy Moore has it right in helping parents understand that the best gift they can give their child is life experiences where they build determination, resilience, and humility. From these hard-won mindset 'muscles' comes true self-esteem. Kid Confidence: Help Your Child Make Friends, Build Resilience, and Develop Real Self-Esteem provides not only a scientific and field-tested information to help us understand this truth but also practical tools for parents as they raise their child to be the confident, determined adult they are meant to be.There are no shortcuts to becoming a confident, determined adult. Self-esteem isn't something parents can give to a child through praise or propping up in school, sports, the arts, or friendships. As Eileen Kennedy Moore points out in Kid Confidence: Help Your Child Make Friends, Build Resilience, and Develop Real Self-Esteem, and those of us with years of experience in education know empirically and from research, the real gift parents can provide that leads to self-esteem is time and space to live through their own experiences so self-reliance, grit, and confidence blossom naturally. Kuddos to Dr. Kennedy Moore for explaining this truth so clearly and passionately and providing the practical tools for parents to wean themselves from ineffective and often damaging interventions in hopes of building self-esteem.Every generation of parents has its own unique challenges. Current parenting norms, described by the often-heard phrases of 'helicopter or drone parenting,' include best intentions gone awry through meddling with a child's ability to build her own self-esteem. As Eileen Kennedy Moore articulates in Kid Confidence: Help Your Child Make Friends, Build Resilience, and Develop Real Self-Esteem, the true gift a parent can give is the opportunity for their child to gain the life experiences, skinned knees and bruised egos included, that authentically develop inner confidence and resilience. Dr. Kennedy Moore provides practical advice on how parents can positively impact self-esteem.

Very helpful

Recommend to all parents. Especially when kiddo is going through low self esteem stages and even before.

Good read so far.

I love this book! My teen has had low self-esteem since he was little. I never thought about how much of it is related to how he puts so much of the focus on himself--in everything--until I read this book! All of the advice parents learned in the 80s and 90s to pump up your kids at every turn (i.e., trophies for everyone)--doesn't work. What does work is getting kids to turn the focus from themselves to other things that I learned from this book. One of my favorite lines is that real self-esteem is, "Letting go of the question 'Am I good enough?'" That's groundbreaking advice right there. Also, like all of her other books, Dr. Kennedy-Moore includes a ton of spot-on research to back up her practical advice that any parent can use for a child struggling with low self-esteem. It makes me feel good when I follow that advice that so much thought went into a book like this--I couldn't find anything like this before and I'm a stickler for research in parenting/nonfiction books. While I read the book in its entirety, I also love that it's broken up into easy-to-follow chapters that you can use as a constant reference. I've already gone back to parts to re-read and used the advice since I read it the first time. As I mentioned before, I really do love this book!

This book is helping me help my sixteen year old granddaughter with questions she’s asking me about her need to understand what’s happening to her during this confusing time of life. I’m so proud she asks so many questions and it’s Eileen Kennedy-Moore’s book “Kid Confidence” that is providing me solid options for sincere answers. I don’t want my granddaughter to think, “sure, she’s my baba, no wonder she thinks I’m terrific”. Dr Kennedy-Moore provides a practical guide and one that seems to be satisfying this young granddaughter. As evidence, she keeps coming back with more questions. So I keep reading and thinking through ways to support her.Her mom and dad received this as a gift from me and it’s one of the best gifts I could give them with two teenagers.Page 114 is exactly what they’ve seen their one of their daughters do a couple years ago when she was being overly perfectionist and frustrated . Imagine having answers on how to handle this difficult situation at the time.My son’s daughter is 4 years old. He and his wife deserve their own copy as it can be read now for some cute answers to why she loves herself so much but they’ll also be ready for what’s yet to come!It’s a bible on childrearing. Wish I had this when raising my two children but I have it now to help them with theirs!Karen Tombacher