The Importance of Self-Confidence and Instilling Worth in Children: A Father's Perspective

As a geek father, I have always believed in instilling self-confidence in my daughter, Jedi, from a young age. I believe that this foundation is crucial for her to develop resilience and coping mechanisms when faced with criticism or negativity from others. As she grows up, it's essential to teach her that self-worth is not defined by what others say about her. By instilling these values, I hope to empower her to navigate the challenges of growing up with confidence and self-assurance.

I have always been a strong believer in the importance of self-awareness and self-confidence. As someone who has faced criticism and negativity from others throughout my life, I know how difficult it can be to deal with. However, I have learned that self-confidence is not just about being aware of one's own strengths and weaknesses, but also about trusting oneself and making decisions based on one's own values and principles. By instilling these values in Jedi, I hope to help her develop this same level of self-awareness and confidence.

Another crucial aspect of instilling self-confidence in children is teaching them that they have the power to make their own decisions. As a parent, it's essential to strike a balance between guiding and directing your child, while also giving them the autonomy to make choices for themselves. By doing so, you help them develop decision-making skills, problem-solving abilities, and self-reliance. These are essential skills that will serve them well throughout their lives.

I also believe in instilling self-worth in children. When someone tries to take away from us, it can be a painful experience. As a parent, I want Jedi to know that she is worthy of love, respect, and happiness, regardless of what others say or do. By instilling this sense of self-worth, I hope to help her develop a positive self-image and confidence in her own abilities.

Limiting Technology: A Parent's Perspective

As a tech-savvy individual, I know that technology can be both beneficial and detrimental. While it offers many opportunities for learning, connection, and creativity, it also poses risks such as cyberbullying, online predators, and excessive screen time. As a parent, I believe it's essential to limit technology use in children, especially at home.

I don't think that limiting technology is about being "Footloose and fancy-free" or completely shutting down all digital devices. Rather, it's about setting boundaries and guidelines for responsible technology use. By doing so, we can help our children develop healthy habits, critical thinking skills, and a balanced approach to technology.

By limiting technology use at home, I hope to protect Jedi from the negative influences of social media, online bullying, and excessive screen time. At the same time, I want her to have access to technology that can be constructive and beneficial for her learning and development. By striking this balance, I believe we can help our children develop a healthy relationship with technology.

The Power of Self-Reliance

As Jedi grows up, it's essential to teach her self-reliance and confidence in her abilities. This means trusting herself to make decisions, solve problems, and navigate challenging situations on her own. By instilling these values, I hope to empower her to become a strong, independent individual who can handle the ups and downs of life with confidence.

As a parent, it's natural to want to protect our children from harm and provide them with a safe and supportive environment. However, as Jedi grows older, she will inevitably face situations where she needs to rely on herself to navigate challenges and make decisions. By teaching her self-reliance and confidence, I hope to help her develop the skills and resilience needed to thrive in these situations.

Conclusion

Instilling self-confidence and worth in children is a vital part of their development and well-being. As a parent, it's essential to teach them that they have the power to make decisions, solve problems, and navigate challenging situations on their own. By instilling these values and teaching them responsible technology use, we can help our children develop healthy habits, critical thinking skills, and a balanced approach to life.

Ultimately, my goal as Jedi's father is to help her become a confident, self-assured individual who can handle the challenges of growing up with ease. By instilling these values and empowering her to make decisions, I hope to give her the tools she needs to succeed in life and live happily ever after.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello galaxy I'm Chris Parrillo and I am once again invoking the name of Steve Jobs but along with him I'm also going to invoke the name of Bill Gates I happen to have been able to meet both of them in my lifetime and I'm grateful for that very brief encounter on either side of the equation believe it or not they happen to agree on a great many things they agreed and disagreed on a great many things but I wanted to cover one particular topic that I'm interested in and it was something that recently bubbled into my feed that I think you may be interested in as well whether or not you also happen to be like me and I don't just mean a geek I mean a geek father someone who is raising a child or maybe you are a child and I kind of hate to say it but if if you're if you're younger than 44 years old you're a child to me that's how it goes and see then when you reach my age you'll you'll understand what that's like but specifically we're talking about parents in adults who you know have the ability to raise a child in their home this is the headline and and of course I would suggest you you read this article even if you aren't a geek father like me this will all start making sense soon I hope Bill Gates and Steve Jobs raised their kids tech free and it should have been a red flag this is something that I said I was planning on doing as much as I understand the value of technology specifically in relation to education stem for example science technology engineering mathematics these are disciplines I hope to be able to expose Jedi to despite there being some kind of cultural misnomer suggesting that because you're a girl or because you're a female you're never going to be interested in stem or stem is just for boys that's not how science technology engineering and mathematics work in fact if it weren't for females in these rules we wouldn't have what we have today we would not have been able to accomplish something as a human species on this planet without both males and females so I understand the role in how to effectively manage it better in relation to having or helping Jedi accommodate what technology might be able to bring to her and unfortunately I think this is a massive disconnect with a lot of parents in my type of position maybe in your position where they don't really understand the power of technology and how it could potentially destroy this is one of the reasons why I call myself anymore a technology minimalist I I don't look to surround myself with technology and I've suggested that you do just the same why let's go ahead and dive a little deeper into this article psychologists are quickly learning how dangerous smartphones can be for teenage brains I'm gonna go a little bit further and suggest that I don't know how good it is for adult brains research has found that an eighth graders risk for depression jumps 27% with when he or she frequently uses social media kids who use their phones for at least three hours a day are much more likely to be suicidal and recent research has found that the teen suicide rate in the u.s. now eclipses the homicide rate with smartphones as the driving force technology can destroy even when you think it won't it's not just what the technology is right this this slab of material it's what it does it it's what it unlocks and I really struggle when I try to accommodate what we have the day and the power of what we have the day not just with the tool sets which I think are absolutely amazing transformative but access to to each other and I remember what I was going through when I was an eighth grader when I was a teenager and it wasn't always a good time like many people who survived those teenage years those very awkward teenage years I will tell you that you may feel just as awkward decades later but you may have been subjected to the whims of other teenagers who really couldn't handle themselves very well I would say that many adults out there still can't handle themselves very well never learned their lesson I had to learn those lessons like many teenagers did and that is there are a lot of people out there who just aren't responsible with their own feelings and emotions and they project I was as I've mentioned several times over someone who was objected to bullying you know my name is Chris and apparently that's that's all bully needs a bully doesn't need an excuse to bully they just don't they just need you to be willing to play the victim and that's what they count on they they they really do they they they prey on that if you've ever been the victim of a bully maybe you're the bully I don't know it's possible to kind of transfer one into the next being the victim and then turning around and being a bully so where I'm going with this should be abundantly clear first of all I know that Jedi as she gets older is going to be exposed to other people and this is one of the reasons I'm grateful to have had the experience of dealing with people online so I can better help her deal with people online before it becomes a problem and this is something that I don't think a lot of parents are able to do because they were never able to figure that out or to them the Internet is an artificial space no no it's every bit the real world as the real world and I'm again so grateful that I've had that exposure so that I can effectively pass along those lessons to Jedi and empower her so that when she faces these problems I will be there to help her talk through it and to process it as a father could or should I mean it's it's in our nature as males to protect we we live for it we don't even know we love to do it it's just innate we protect and I of course would want to protect my daughter knowing full well that she's going to go out into the world at some point in the future and live her own life but that's all the more reason that it's critical to not manage not and certainly not micromanage but to effectively counsel someone a child through the nuances of dealing with other people online the reason I talked about bullying is because this is very much a part of the teenage experience online bullying cyber bullying is a real thing and I know some people have said well you know she's gonna be bully because her name's Jedi well first of all her name actually means unlike you know a lot of people's names I mean every name seems to mean something but she was named after her mother her grandmother and her other grandmother Judy Elia Diana that's Jedi's so it actually means something and a bullies going to find any excuse your hair's too long your hair's too short your avatars this way your avatars not that way you know you you misspelled this word you didn't misspell this working they'll come up with any reason to do it the deal-breaker for me is effectively handing over technology to a child of any age and then certainly not being there in those formative years where those first social interactions are happening without being able to help and to say that look there are a lot of people who lack what you may already have and so that's why it's critical for me in raising her with Diana and we agree we see eye-to-eye on this not just you know myself and Bill Gates and Steve Jobs but Diana and I as well as as parents I believe in instilling in Jedi a few I think I guess we can call them traits I'm not a not a trained person I'm just a geek father who's got certain beliefs I believe in self-confidence and instilling in her that that foundation self-confidence such that when someone projects themselves on to her or suggests that she's less of a human being because of reasons she can be resilient to that and that self-confidence is is very critical not just self-awareness self-confidence such that the decision she's made she's she's fine with the decisions he's made despite what somebody else may say knowing full well that she may be you know under social pressure peer pressure that self-confidence will be that much more important which is something that I've I've developed over time but I think I've always had a relatively strong feeling of self and I'm hoping that Jedi will as well I also believe in instilling that feeling of self worth such that when someone tries to take away from her just like people try to take away from me all the time all the time everywhere like it's constant if if I share anything in social I'm slagged for it I was slagged because I decided to play a new Star Wars videogame and I'm the worst person in the world for doing so but does this mean anything to me no it means nothing that person means nothing they don't know me they're not me they can't make the decisions for me so I believe in you know that power of self confidence self awareness self worth and then possibly above all and hopefully this will happen later rather than sooner although we are seeing just glimpses of this self reliance and I believe that's important as well because inevitably there are going to be times that I will not be there with her and that Diana will not be there with her when she's in a situation that she can only count on herself and I think these are conditions that could lend themselves to helping her through the stages that she's going to be facing I could not effectively say no you're never getting online that's not practical you know as much as I would want her to avoid you know you know exposure to horrible people it's inevitably going to happen but to me not the sooner she goes through that the better but the the when it does happen when I can be there for her to better explain and to show and illustrate how I deal with things I've become that mentor for her as a father and I'm sure there are people online because I've had a few emails over the years suggesting that I was remotely a father figure that they did not have to be able to show them that you can be yourself and that's okay despite what anybody may say in your social circles whether or not those are you know based upon location or or or what-have-you we all kind of go through these these stages throughout life so long as we make it to a certain age but I believe that you know limiting a kid's use of technology at home is important i I don't believe in just being Footloose and fancy-free with gadgets I seek to limit not just you know my usage of them but certainly exposure to them you know or of them to Jedi as she's able to progress through the years being very careful to also exposure to thing that technology might enable that could be constructive so by the time she could potentially run into a problem she's got enough skills to be able to internalize without that destroying that you know sense of self which apparently is very very important so why does Chris live as a tech minimalist why does he choose to limit jedis use of technology at home you may want to read that article and maybe even do more research technology is not everything it's cracked up to be especially when somebody else gets a hold of it it may not be what you do but it's certainly what other people are doing with it and that could lead to a problem what are your thoughts on limiting technology in your life are you better for it maybe you're still a kid I know a lot of you are maybe you're an adult's I know a lot of you think you are I Mac adult I'm somewhere in between let me know your thoughts I thought it was an interesting topic to talk about if only because it was ripped from the headlines I agree with both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs about this thing this very thing what about you I am going to let you go though thank you everybody for tuning in remember that TLDR is broadcast live every weekday at youtube.com slash locker-room you can join discord chat by becoming a sub of mine on twitch.tv slash Chris Parrillo or a patron at patreon.com slash Chris Parrillo appreciate that kind of support as well as the super chats when we do live videos on YouTube thanks again for tuning in I love you I appreciate you but at this point I'm going to leave you to your own devices assuming you don't have too many of them laying around may the force be with youhello galaxy I'm Chris Parrillo and I am once again invoking the name of Steve Jobs but along with him I'm also going to invoke the name of Bill Gates I happen to have been able to meet both of them in my lifetime and I'm grateful for that very brief encounter on either side of the equation believe it or not they happen to agree on a great many things they agreed and disagreed on a great many things but I wanted to cover one particular topic that I'm interested in and it was something that recently bubbled into my feed that I think you may be interested in as well whether or not you also happen to be like me and I don't just mean a geek I mean a geek father someone who is raising a child or maybe you are a child and I kind of hate to say it but if if you're if you're younger than 44 years old you're a child to me that's how it goes and see then when you reach my age you'll you'll understand what that's like but specifically we're talking about parents in adults who you know have the ability to raise a child in their home this is the headline and and of course I would suggest you you read this article even if you aren't a geek father like me this will all start making sense soon I hope Bill Gates and Steve Jobs raised their kids tech free and it should have been a red flag this is something that I said I was planning on doing as much as I understand the value of technology specifically in relation to education stem for example science technology engineering mathematics these are disciplines I hope to be able to expose Jedi to despite there being some kind of cultural misnomer suggesting that because you're a girl or because you're a female you're never going to be interested in stem or stem is just for boys that's not how science technology engineering and mathematics work in fact if it weren't for females in these rules we wouldn't have what we have today we would not have been able to accomplish something as a human species on this planet without both males and females so I understand the role in how to effectively manage it better in relation to having or helping Jedi accommodate what technology might be able to bring to her and unfortunately I think this is a massive disconnect with a lot of parents in my type of position maybe in your position where they don't really understand the power of technology and how it could potentially destroy this is one of the reasons why I call myself anymore a technology minimalist I I don't look to surround myself with technology and I've suggested that you do just the same why let's go ahead and dive a little deeper into this article psychologists are quickly learning how dangerous smartphones can be for teenage brains I'm gonna go a little bit further and suggest that I don't know how good it is for adult brains research has found that an eighth graders risk for depression jumps 27% with when he or she frequently uses social media kids who use their phones for at least three hours a day are much more likely to be suicidal and recent research has found that the teen suicide rate in the u.s. now eclipses the homicide rate with smartphones as the driving force technology can destroy even when you think it won't it's not just what the technology is right this this slab of material it's what it does it it's what it unlocks and I really struggle when I try to accommodate what we have the day and the power of what we have the day not just with the tool sets which I think are absolutely amazing transformative but access to to each other and I remember what I was going through when I was an eighth grader when I was a teenager and it wasn't always a good time like many people who survived those teenage years those very awkward teenage years I will tell you that you may feel just as awkward decades later but you may have been subjected to the whims of other teenagers who really couldn't handle themselves very well I would say that many adults out there still can't handle themselves very well never learned their lesson I had to learn those lessons like many teenagers did and that is there are a lot of people out there who just aren't responsible with their own feelings and emotions and they project I was as I've mentioned several times over someone who was objected to bullying you know my name is Chris and apparently that's that's all bully needs a bully doesn't need an excuse to bully they just don't they just need you to be willing to play the victim and that's what they count on they they they really do they they they prey on that if you've ever been the victim of a bully maybe you're the bully I don't know it's possible to kind of transfer one into the next being the victim and then turning around and being a bully so where I'm going with this should be abundantly clear first of all I know that Jedi as she gets older is going to be exposed to other people and this is one of the reasons I'm grateful to have had the experience of dealing with people online so I can better help her deal with people online before it becomes a problem and this is something that I don't think a lot of parents are able to do because they were never able to figure that out or to them the Internet is an artificial space no no it's every bit the real world as the real world and I'm again so grateful that I've had that exposure so that I can effectively pass along those lessons to Jedi and empower her so that when she faces these problems I will be there to help her talk through it and to process it as a father could or should I mean it's it's in our nature as males to protect we we live for it we don't even know we love to do it it's just innate we protect and I of course would want to protect my daughter knowing full well that she's going to go out into the world at some point in the future and live her own life but that's all the more reason that it's critical to not manage not and certainly not micromanage but to effectively counsel someone a child through the nuances of dealing with other people online the reason I talked about bullying is because this is very much a part of the teenage experience online bullying cyber bullying is a real thing and I know some people have said well you know she's gonna be bully because her name's Jedi well first of all her name actually means unlike you know a lot of people's names I mean every name seems to mean something but she was named after her mother her grandmother and her other grandmother Judy Elia Diana that's Jedi's so it actually means something and a bullies going to find any excuse your hair's too long your hair's too short your avatars this way your avatars not that way you know you you misspelled this word you didn't misspell this working they'll come up with any reason to do it the deal-breaker for me is effectively handing over technology to a child of any age and then certainly not being there in those formative years where those first social interactions are happening without being able to help and to say that look there are a lot of people who lack what you may already have and so that's why it's critical for me in raising her with Diana and we agree we see eye-to-eye on this not just you know myself and Bill Gates and Steve Jobs but Diana and I as well as as parents I believe in instilling in Jedi a few I think I guess we can call them traits I'm not a not a trained person I'm just a geek father who's got certain beliefs I believe in self-confidence and instilling in her that that foundation self-confidence such that when someone projects themselves on to her or suggests that she's less of a human being because of reasons she can be resilient to that and that self-confidence is is very critical not just self-awareness self-confidence such that the decision she's made she's she's fine with the decisions he's made despite what somebody else may say knowing full well that she may be you know under social pressure peer pressure that self-confidence will be that much more important which is something that I've I've developed over time but I think I've always had a relatively strong feeling of self and I'm hoping that Jedi will as well I also believe in instilling that feeling of self worth such that when someone tries to take away from her just like people try to take away from me all the time all the time everywhere like it's constant if if I share anything in social I'm slagged for it I was slagged because I decided to play a new Star Wars videogame and I'm the worst person in the world for doing so but does this mean anything to me no it means nothing that person means nothing they don't know me they're not me they can't make the decisions for me so I believe in you know that power of self confidence self awareness self worth and then possibly above all and hopefully this will happen later rather than sooner although we are seeing just glimpses of this self reliance and I believe that's important as well because inevitably there are going to be times that I will not be there with her and that Diana will not be there with her when she's in a situation that she can only count on herself and I think these are conditions that could lend themselves to helping her through the stages that she's going to be facing I could not effectively say no you're never getting online that's not practical you know as much as I would want her to avoid you know you know exposure to horrible people it's inevitably going to happen but to me not the sooner she goes through that the better but the the when it does happen when I can be there for her to better explain and to show and illustrate how I deal with things I've become that mentor for her as a father and I'm sure there are people online because I've had a few emails over the years suggesting that I was remotely a father figure that they did not have to be able to show them that you can be yourself and that's okay despite what anybody may say in your social circles whether or not those are you know based upon location or or or what-have-you we all kind of go through these these stages throughout life so long as we make it to a certain age but I believe that you know limiting a kid's use of technology at home is important i I don't believe in just being Footloose and fancy-free with gadgets I seek to limit not just you know my usage of them but certainly exposure to them you know or of them to Jedi as she's able to progress through the years being very careful to also exposure to thing that technology might enable that could be constructive so by the time she could potentially run into a problem she's got enough skills to be able to internalize without that destroying that you know sense of self which apparently is very very important so why does Chris live as a tech minimalist why does he choose to limit jedis use of technology at home you may want to read that article and maybe even do more research technology is not everything it's cracked up to be especially when somebody else gets a hold of it it may not be what you do but it's certainly what other people are doing with it and that could lead to a problem what are your thoughts on limiting technology in your life are you better for it maybe you're still a kid I know a lot of you are maybe you're an adult's I know a lot of you think you are I Mac adult I'm somewhere in between let me know your thoughts I thought it was an interesting topic to talk about if only because it was ripped from the headlines I agree with both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs about this thing this very thing what about you I am going to let you go though thank you everybody for tuning in remember that TLDR is broadcast live every weekday at youtube.com slash locker-room you can join discord chat by becoming a sub of mine on twitch.tv slash Chris Parrillo or a patron at patreon.com slash Chris Parrillo appreciate that kind of support as well as the super chats when we do live videos on YouTube thanks again for tuning in I love you I appreciate you but at this point I'm going to leave you to your own devices assuming you don't have too many of them laying around may the force be with you\n"