This is what happened yesterday, my seven year old boy asked, "Mom, what does confidence mean?" Of course this boy has a habit of asking questions when I am in the midst of fixing dinner or mid stream...so today was not an exception. When I am most preoccupied or when I am most vulnerable I get bombarded.
So what do I say, I can hardly think while I add cajun spices and taco sauce to a macerated rotisserie chicken (macerated, only because today I decided to practice using my food processor). Confidence, hmm...at this point I can think of "lack of confidence" as I attempt to answer this question. This is how the conversation went, as I had to turn off dinner to attend to some greater need.
me: Do you remember the time we took off the training wheel from your bicycle?
nwf: Uh-huh...
me: Well you cried and complained and you were afraid you'd fall that you never, ever wanted to ride the bike again. But we kept telling you that it would be okay, we would not let anything bad happen to you, we'll be right behind you the whole time. Meantime we lowered the seat so he could easily touch the ground, we biked him around, holding on to the steering wheel. There was a time when he would just scoot around or go down an incline and tried hard to balance himself. This went on for months. Then one day it all came together.
nwf: Yeah...
me: Well, just a couple of days ago, you decided to try again and because you practiced so many times, you had confidence that you could do it. You are no longer afraid. So lately, after breakfast I hear, "are we going bike riding today mom?"
