As a rule, I am a very confident person, I’m not afraid to stand up in front of a crowd or speak my mind on something I have knowledge in but confidence is so much more than that.

For the next 9 weeks I’m attending a building confidence course, at first, I thought this was going to be building up children’s confidence but its actually from a parents perspective, which is great as it’s brought feelings I didn’t even know I felt. Today we were asked to set some individual goals in regards to our own personal confidence, mine are the following:

• Accept help from others- I am a very knowledgeable person with most areas of the spectrum & the psychological effect this has on people. I am very rigid with our routines as I’ve set them & enforced them so I am very reluctant to hand the reins over to someone else as it generally undoes everything I have put into place. I stop doing things as I worry what these effects will have on the children, mainly Teddie.
• Support my son (Alfie) with his confidence & low self-worth: Alfie is the least confident boy I know, he puts himself down pretty much every day. Although we support him at home and he has help at school with his anxieties I feel he could progress so much more if he had the tools to self-regulate his owns feelings & have the confidence to speak his mind.
• Inner confidence: Although my outer exterior tells you I am a confident person my inner exterior is telling me different. I am very obsessive when it comes to my children but not so much about myself, I pretty much put myself down at least a few times a week. I worry what people think.
• Avoid toxic people:  There are certain people I need to avoid as they make me feel a certain way about myself. I’d say I am a very good listener, I’ll sit and allow friends/family to tell me their problems, worries or concerns but when it comes to my turn to share my feelings I’m shut down & not listened too.

I’ve always been an advocate for “It’s okay not to be okay” as parents we all feel like we are doing a rubbish job at one point in our lives- your lying if you think this isn’t the case but it comes down to having the confidence to admit this to ourselves and be able to make the changes that are needed for you to feel good about yourself.

I think building confidence isn’t necessarily aimed at parents with children on the spectrum, in fact, you do not even need to be a parent to want to improve your confidence. First impression count & by making small changes this can make you feel so much better in social environments.

The information I gain over these next 9 weeks I would love to share with you all, sometimes the smallest of change can be the breakthrough you needed to become the more confident you.