That a person is competent means that they can effectively achieve their goals. A competent person will have persistence and will observe in a given situation what problems you may have and respond accordingly.
Competent people act with feeling, even inspiration, but they don't let their emotions stop them if they are negative. In other words, they overcome internal and external obstacles to stay focused on the task and meet the goals they have set for themselves.
Competency in adults is a prerequisite for professional and personal success. But what is competition in children? Competent children are able to handle emotional challenges well enough to tackle age-appropriate tasks At each stage of development, master them and emerge with greater confidence. They have the emotional intelligence to manage and get along with others.
Children who consider themselves competent feel capable and powerful. They are more likely to be resourceful, believe in themselves, attempt tough challenges, and show resilience in the face of setbacks. How can you help your child develop competence, which is really a mixture of confidence, resourcefulness, perseverance, mastery, emotional intelligence, and other traits?
From a young age: let them do it themselves
They will need your guide and your guidance, of course. Letting him do things for himself does not mean abandoning him to fate. Help your child in any way that is necessary, but never do things completely for him, because then you will be forbidding him to grow and evolve.
Hold back your impatience. Think if you are really helping your son or if on the contrary, you are doing things for him.
Help him build confidence to tackle challenges
Researchers in emotional development call it "scaffolding," which could be defined as the framework that gives your child the ability to build on. You show your child how to do something once, or you use questions to suggest each step, or you simply guide her and then give her more space in her actions, helping her to be successful when she tries something new.
These small successes with your help give her the confidence to try new things. Scaffolding also teaches children that help is always available if they need it.
Don't make him feel bad for failing
If you ask a question that for you has an easy answer and your child does not answer it well, for you it is only something easy, for your child it can be a failure because he feels that he has disappointed you. You will think it is not good enough.
For this reason, when you teach him something and he does not know how to answer well, simply make him see that there are other ways to learn it, and that if it does not work out now, nothing happens. At another time you will be fine with the error you have now.
Empathize with your child's emotions
Do not evaluate their achievements, empathize with their emotions. If your child feels that you only evaluate him when he does things right, he will think that if he is not brilliant, he will be a disappointment to you. This will create a child who cares about always impressing others. If you tell him he's smart this can get worse because he knows he's not always smart and he doesn't know how to get smarter, it's not something he has control over.
Focus more on how you work or how you try to improve than on results. For example, you can tell him that you love it when he never gives up.
Praise the effort, not the results
Following the previous point, it is necessary to make the children understand that what really matters is not so much the results but, yes, the effort that has been used to achieve self-improvement, regardless of the results that have been obtained. Make him see that hard work will always have good results (especially emotional).
Learning from mistakes
Mistakes do not have to be a reason for suffering or frustration, a mistake will always be a great learning tool. Children who get the message that spilled milk is a problem and there is a right way to do things often end up with less initiative and creativity. Just smile, give him the sponge and say: 'You always have to clean up our messes, I'll help you.'
In this way, a child will learn the importance of learning from faults and, above all, learning how to solve them.
Don't set him up for failure
It is difficult for parents to decide whether or not to intervene when a child experiences failure. Rescuing children from failure can prevent them from learning great lessons, but can they feel unloved? It can, if you stray too far. Not rescuing them from failure does not mean that you should abandon them to their fate, it all depends on how you approach what has happened.
If you do homework for your child because he is getting tired, he will not learn to do things for himself, but he will learn something horrible for his development: others will do things for him and he does not have to strive to achieve good results. And furthermore, he will believe that he is incompetent who is not capable of doing things on his own.
What is necessary is that you teach him an organizational structure, so that he does not learn to fail, but to try even if the results are not as good as they would like. In other words, help him every step of the way to organize his ideas and work, but resist the urge to do things for your child.
Teach him to be automotive
Research shows that children who say positive things to themselves when faced with challenges feel calmer and therefore more persistent when the going gets tough. Let him know that practice makes perfect and if something is not achieved, just try again.
When your son plays a piece on the piano and has to start over, or your daughter hits the bases loaded, they need an internal automatic comforting voice to encourage and motivate them, not that harsh, self-deprecating voice. The good news is that the tone they hear from you will become their inner voice.