About Public Speaking Fear in Children
This article reveals ways to develop public confidence and overcome the fear of speaking in front of people. The cause of public speaking fear is a complex of components, and practically every component of this complex cannot be corrected through psychological means alone.
Dr. Sigmund Freud worked with his patients' fears for years, often unsuccessfully. As a talented and charming person, he managed to fill others with positive emotion and provide temporary effect, but the problem underlying the fear remained and later manifested itself. Training and short-term psychologist sessions carry a similar effect – one-time or temporary therapy is ineffective.
What are the basic rules for developing confidence in children?
The first rule of success is consistency and continuity. And the earlier you start working with a child, the better. Developing oratorical skills requires long-term and consistent work, not one-time measures.
The second rule of success is to never compare yourself to anyone and don't expect validation from others. The next problem teenagers face is the fear of low evaluation. Who instilled this life need for high evaluation? Or perhaps this someone constantly sets someone else as an example – a brother, sister, classmate, or friend? Parents bear full responsibility for a child's self-esteem and their need for others' evaluation.
The third rule of success is intellectual and comprehensive development. Vocabulary and logic development depend exclusively on comprehensive development. If a child is not interested in many things, it's necessary to find a path through what interests them. Why not go to a museum to take good selfies or play games, rather than listen to a boring tour? The informational and cultural result will be there anyway.
Why is creative development important?
The fourth rule of success is creative development. Intellectual development is not enough; sufficient time should be devoted to literature or painting, for example. This develops imagination and creates conditions for developing oratorical mastery. And verbal freedom, in turn, develops nonverbal technique as well.
Creativity is the main factor of successful business and creating personality as a brand. Later in rhetoric and public speaking, creativity will be necessary to formulate thoughts figuratively so they are more easily absorbed and remembered. By the way, jokes – a form of humor – are also creativity multiplied by intellect. And this is exactly what evokes positive emotion in a person, with which they associate the speaker. That is, a creative person is charismatic.
How to develop leadership qualities?
The fifth rule of success is developing leadership qualities (including responsibility and initiative). Every idea has a right to life, and every idea a child should try to implement without the slightest doubt. These are their small victories, small structural constructions that they created themselves. This is their life experience on a model, but with absolutely accurate result and achievement.
Personal achievements and practical results give the child structural thinking, logic, experience, responsibility, and confidence. When a child sees the real results of their activity, they gain confidence in their own abilities.
As you can see, all rules are simple and come down to just one thing – treating the child as a person, respecting their thoughts, ideas, and points of view. And you should start from birth itself, because our attitude toward a child is not words, but something much bigger and stronger.
