Lowering your child's trust of others / 05 Dec 2016

Signposts to lower your child’s trust of others

You may be concerned that your child has an overly high trust of other people’s ideas, thoughts, feelings and opinions. A healthy questionning of others enables children to develop good judgement, agency and appropriate responsibility . Children who develop a fixed bias toward high trust of others can have increased risks: they can be drawn into dependent relationships, seeking to please those they see as influential. They can be naive and lack critical skills to question other’s motives and ideas. They can become over-burdened taking on inappropriate responsibility or blame for things that other’s have done. So how can you signpost your children to lower their trust of others? Look out for when your child takes on inappropriate responsibility for others, takes on a caring role within the home, or absorbs emotional tension. These behaviours can make your child feel overwhelmed, which can become problematic if they don’t have effective ways to relax. As a parent, you can be intentional about directing your child towards healthy outlets that they might like, such as sport, drama or music. Look for ways to give your children experiences which are relaxing and where they are not supporting anyone else. Enable them to ‘receive’ these freely rather they feeling they have to ‘earn’ them through duty or hard work. Children with a high trust of others may feel a sense of guilt that they receiving from, rather than giving to, other people.  

Lowering your child's trust of themself / 30 Nov 2016

Signposts to lower your child’s trust of themself

You may be concerned that your child has an overly high trust in their own ideas, thoughts, feelings and opinions. A healthy questionning of one self enables children to develop mutual friendships, resilience and good judgement. Children who develop a fixed bias toward high trust of them self can have increased risks. They can become self-reliant and dismissive of feedback. They may develop a sense of superiority, dominating friendships. They can be complacent and expect others to solve their problems. They may struggle to cope with setbacks when they arise. So how can you signpost your children to lower their trust in themselves? Encourage your children to evaluate the advice they have been given so that they make informed decisions. For example, ask your child for a piece of advice they have been given from a teacher, peer or friend. Aid them in a discussion of why this advice has been given, and what the intentions of the person giving the advice are. Take opportunities to model asking for help yourself.  This is extremely helpful in demonstrating that being open to advice is a healthy and natural part of learning and growing up. Share your own experiences of listening to advice which has then shaped your decisions in a positive way. Model setting realistic expectations for what your children could aim to achieve in a forthcoming challenge, activity or the coming year. For example, if they came low down in an event last year, where could they realistically come next time? You can then talk about steps they would need to take to achieve this. Help them reflect on their current ability to detect progress over the next year. If they are at a 4 with a skill, what realistically could they be by the end of the year? What…

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Increasing your child's trust of others / 30 Nov 2016

Signposts to increase your child’s trust of others

You may be concerned that your child has an unduly low trust in other people’s ideas, thoughts, feelings and opinions. A healthy trust of others’ enables children to develop mutual friendships, judgement about when to ask for help and the ability to collaborate. Children who develop a fixed bias towards low trust of others can have increased risks: they can become dismissive of other’s contribution and feedback. They may be overly self-reliant dismissing or hiding weakness and vulnerability making it hard to help them. They can be inflexible and controlling in relationships. So how can you signpost your children to increase their trust of other people?