Confidence and anxiety: Facebook Live

13 October 2025

In one of our Facebook Live sessions for parents and carers, Rachel talked about how to help our teens and tweens grow a lasting confidence that's based in who God is rather than who they are.

She talked about this three times: once for parents and carers of under 5s, then again for parents and carers or primary aged children and finally for parents and carers of tweens and teens. You can see all three videos below and we have added short notes as well.

For under fives

Understanding confidence in young children

Under-fives often show extremes — bold and carefree one moment, shy and anxious the next. This is normal development as their brains grow and they are figuring out how the world works. Parents and carers get to coach their child through these moments.

The idea of ‘confidence’ can be a red herring. Rather than trying to give kids confidence, you can help them find the fruit of confidence – security, joy and peace. True confidence grows from knowing who and what they can rely on.

Three foundations for building real confidence

1. Confidence in God’s Presence

The bible speaks of confidence in God, not oneself. So help children understand that God is a reliable companion you can count on. By creating windows into and framing what this looks like in your life you can model this and help children understand. This will help children feel safe and peaceful even in changing environments.

2. See themselves as learners

Encourage kids to see themselves as learners who can grow, improve, and recover from mistakes. Praise effort and progress (“You tried again!”), rather than static traits (“You’re perfect!”).

3. Confidence that they are powerful

Children gain strength when they see they can make a difference — comforting someone, helping a friend, caring for nature. This helps develop a sense of confidence and value, and shifts their focus from themselves to the impact they can have.

For primary aged kids and teens and tweens

Talk about where confidence comes from

We want our kids to be confident and free from anxiety. We can see them gaining confidence as a silver bullet that will help them and bring about good stuff. But kids know they can’t rely on themselves so telling them to be confident isn’t enough. We need to point them to God, their ever-present companion they can always rely on, and our role is to walk alongside them and disciple them in the truths about confidence that will bear fruit.

Talk about what you really want them to know

When your kid is anxious or lacks confidence, ask yourself: what do they really need to know here? What is underneath the situation? It might be a misunderstanding, a mistake, a lack of power, a wrong view of God. When you know what’s underneath then you can use the Parenting for Faith key tools to disciple them in the truth about that situation and give them skills to change things. Create windows into and frame times in your life when you have lacked confidence or felt anxious, who God was in that and what happened. This discipling will help to grow confidence in them. In the teens session, Rachel answered questions about this from viewers.

Help them connect to God

As well as discipling, help them connect to God about it. Philippians 4:6, 7 gives us the route to peace: Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Sessions 4 and 5 of our original course and session 3 of our teens course introduce and explain how to help your child develop a God-connected prayer life.