Confidence Building

My girl used to be a very shy girl. When she was very young, she would cling like a koala to us whenever we met up with relatives. She would cry if anyone other than us tried to carry her. When we were having group photos taken, she would hide her face in our neck or chest refusing to look at the camera. She was afraid whenever there were a lot of people looking at her. When my sister came to visit me at home, she would run under the table to hide and refuse to come out.

I started my girl in kindy at aged 6, this year. Before that she never attended any playgroup or nursery. She didn't have a chance to practise her social skills and I was a little worried about it.

However she has done fine. She has been chosen to be emcee for her kindy year end concert. Its a rather difficult role. The emcees are required to memorise a few pages of words, some of them are rather bombastic and difficult to pronounce and they have to speak in 3 languages, English, Malay and Chinese. I have seen the papers. I think even an adult may have difficulty memorising and carrying out the role!

While I am happy that she has this opportunity which I think will be a good way for her to build her confidence, I am also a little worried and want to make sure that it doesn't do the opposite instead. I believe that if she does well, it will boost her confidence but if she doesn't it may put a dent in her self esteem.

Ok. Ok. I know its just a kindy concert but I'm a mother and mother's worry about everything. I am trying to help her by helping her to memorise and pronounce the difficult words. Her teacher says that she tends to speak very fast, a sign of nervousness so I'll have to help her slow down as well. I am trying to help her without putting any pressure on her to succeed.

Any suggestions from any wonderful mommies out there on how to build a child's self esteem and confidence? What do you do to help boost your child's confidence?