By Jane Pinel

Confidence: A sense of power and control and the feeling of “I can do this”.

Humans are not solitary creatures. They need to feel like they are part of a group to feel safe. A new baby, totally helpless, if he is born into a family that is preoccupied with war or drugs or other things and no one answers his cry for food or comfort, he feels abandoned. But if a newborn baby cries and is comforted with food and a warm loving breast and a family who loves him, it starts to occur to him that his cries are bringing what he needs. He begins to feel the first sense of power and confidence in his own ability to survive. His cries are resulting in food, comfort and safety.

As your baby grows, you play and laugh and enjoy him. He begins to know that you are happy that he exists and gives you pleasure. He develops confidence and knows that he is in a safe environment.

In the next 12 months your baby will learn to use his hands to reach for things and hold his bottle. He will get strong enough to sit up on his own and eventually he will learn to take his first steps — a triumph of muscle coordination. With his new abilities and confidence he will set out to explore his world.

Now his life gets more complicated as he can reach things that are either dangerous or off limits for other reasons. Now you have to teach him the meaning of the word “no”. You must realize that you are the sun and the moon to this child. Your view of him is his view of himself. As you start to teach the meaning of the word “no”, punishment should not be part of this process. You must let him know you approved of him and believe in him but that he must learn the meaning of this new word and you know that he can do it.

Your child will need confidence to tackle the challenges of childhood. You can help him with this by letting him know you believe in his ability to succeed, and if he should have a failure you believe in his ability to get up and try again. Celebration of success is always more powerful than punishment for failure.