Lack of confidence in one's abilities can occur when in the past one has always been lead to believe they are not capable of doing what they want to do. When parents are raising kids, one of the most fundamental mistakes that can happen is when they impose on their kids their own dreams and expectations. When the kids choose to not live up to their parents dream or fail to do so, they can be frowned upon and looked down and therefore they begin to underestimate their potentials.
When I look back, I don't really recall specific instances where my parents have looked down upon me. Instead, I noticed that they pretty much wanted me to succeed and therefore tried their best to encourage me and support me. Yet, when I listen to other people speak, I find that they have a total different experience. In their case, their parents told them that they will never do it as in making it big. When a child hears the same things repeatedly, they turn into society slaves who live life with no self acceptance.
What parents need to understand is that children are merely a reflection of who they have allowed and accepted themselves to become. If a parent is telling their child that they can't make it, what they have claimed is that they failed to make it themselves and therefore their kids will never be able to do so.
Let us analyze what is really going on here. Something the child does triggers a reaction or thought in the parent. This reaction or though originates because there is some sort of unfinished business in the parent's life such as they wanted to be the best athlete or doctor but circumstances or choice did not make that happen for them. They therefore develop this anger or frustration in them and want to seek revenge so that they can achieve that feeling of success they so desire. When they react to a child's performance or bahevior, this flaw they see in their child is something that drives them crazy as now this flaw will not allow the child to become successful so that the parent's ego is being fed. Therefore, the flaw or imperfection that they perceive in the child is something which originates from them, the parents. In other words, the parent has just created a flaw in that kid. What happens then is that they tell the kid about the flaw that they have just created and start labeling the kid with that particular flaw. Keep in mind, the kid itself did not create anything here ass they are simply expressing themselves in a given time frame.
So now the child goes through life being seen as inadequate in their parents eyes for something they themselves did not create but since they follow their parent's guidance, they are subject to that influence. The child internalizes the flaw that the parents had created. The child then spends the rest of their life living out that flaw where now the flaw will cause them to develop a specific personality or behavior. As an example, low self esteem and lack of self confidence in one originates due to that.
What can we parents realize and learn from all this? First, when we look at our child and react to what they are expressing. Let us question why we are reacting to that. Let us then investigate in our lives the root cause of this trigger and fix it. If we parents are driven by this energetic drive to just want our kids to be the best at everything so that we can obtain the validation that our genes are the best, then what are we promoting on this planet? We are simply just promoting more competition as we will create winners and losers and swing from one side to the other to feed our egos. Let us instead just aim at developing our children's potentials by seeing what their ambitions are and encouraging those seeds to germinate.
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