One of the important concepts in a person's life is self-confidence. Since the foundations of self-confidence, which helps the individual in many subjects ranging from expressing oneself comfortably to socializing and adding meaning to oneself, are laid in childhood, important duties fall upon parents in this regard.
Stop and think about the people you remember from your childhood days, school years, social environments, or business life... Who has remained in your mind? Other than your close friends, who comes to your mind, those who are very quiet or those who draw attention with their self-confidence? Then it would not be wrong if we say that self-confidence is a prominent feature. Defining self-confidence as "a person's global assessment of their own value, an aspect of the concept of self...," Yeditepe University Koşuyolu Hospital Specialist Clinical Psychologist Merve Öz explained the role of self-confidence in life as follows before answering our questions on the subject:
"Self-confidence affects the whole of life. It directly influences processes such as expressing oneself comfortably in a setting or communicating ideas. Therefore, it affects life positively or negatively as a line extending between asserting oneself or hiding oneself."

How Does Lack of Self-Confidence Manifest? 

This condition manifests itself mostly as not stating one's opinion or inability to express it, difficulty in making decisions, inability to set boundaries, failure to say "no," ignoring positive events but being easily influenced by negative events, not entering social environments, introversion, shame, guilt, regret, feeling unloved, evaluating oneself as unsuccessful and worthless, not liking one's physical appearance, believing that one will be easily rejected by people, being overly sensitive to criticism and not being able to take risks.

What Kind of Problems and Consequences Does It Lead To? 

Symptoms of a lack of self-confidence, such as negative thoughts about oneself and self-blame, can increase the predisposition to depression. Lack of self-confidence can lead to social phobia over time by matching symptoms such as isolation from society and inability to express one's opinion due to the fear of being disgraced. In addition, it can be so closely associated with eating disorders, even with emotional eating. Emotional eating is defined as eating as a reaction to events rather than out of hunger. It causes a person to eat in response to sadness or stress, namely in an attempt to evoke a positive feeling. They can eat as a way of reducing the negative emotions they feel. Their self-confidence decreases even more due to their excessive weight, and they can enter a vicious circle by isolating themself from society and engaging in further overeating.

Do Childhood Traumas or Experiences From That Time Have a Bearing on the Root of This Situation? 

Childhood traumas are considered among the most fundamental causes of low self-confidence. During this period, children excluded by their families, emotionally neglected, and subjected to sexual abuse experience self-confidence problems much more often. Children excluded and neglected by their families often feel unloved and consider themselves unsuccessful and worthless. They become withdrawn as they believe that people will easily reject them. On the other hand, abuse shakes the child's emotional and sexual development, interpersonal relationships, and self-confidence. Disliking their physical appearance and feeling shame and guilt are among the most common symptoms in abused children. Therefore, these symptoms cause other symptoms of lack of self-confidence, such as not entering social environments and introversion.

What Kind of Influence Does a Parent Have on the Development of a Person's Self-Confidence? 

The parent has a vital bearing on the self-confidence of the child. The pressure put on the child by the parents negatively affects their self-confidence. The parent's attitude towards various activities is decisive for the value that the child attaches to performance. The family's attitude is essential for the child to set a goal. The child perceives that parental support depends on achievements such as receiving good grades, joining a sports team, being loved much by their friends, and being a popular child. The self-confidence of the child who cannot meet the standards can change inversely proportional when he realizes that the difference between the ideal and achieved results is growing.
The value that a child attaches to a skill or a quality is directly influenced by the evaluations of their parents and peers. For example, external appearance stands out as an important standard. A very tall or fat child feels worthless and inadequate as they are outside the norms, which decreases their self-confidence. In addition, the child's first experiences of success and failure in various fields undoubtedly play a significant role in self-confidence.

Is It Possible to Evaluate Self-Confidence in the Same Way As Courage? What Are the Aspects it Differs?

Although these two concepts may seem very close to each other, they are actually different. Self-confidence is being satisfied with oneself due to developing positive feelings towards oneself, and as a result, being at peace with oneself and one's milieu, whereas courage is not being afraid of anything that may happen to oneself. While self-confidence requires an infrastructure from the past, courage does not need it. Although everyone can be brave, they may not be self-confident. Although courage can be imposed by others or by a higher value, self-confidence arises when a person imposes it on himself personally. Excess of both can cause harm.

Is It Right For a Person to Pretend to Be Self-Confident Instead of Trying to Increase Their Low Self-Confidence? How Does Pretending to Have Something That Does not Exist Affect Human Psychology?

The fact that people who lack self-confidence pretend to be self-confident causes them to tire themselves out and wear themselves out more. For example, a person with low self-confidence prefers not to talk to avoid being disgraced in society and probably describes the people who participate in the conversation as self-confident. They can think that they need to participate in the conversation to appear self-confident. They might have to think for a long time about the sentence they will utter. When the desire to join the conversation and the fear of humiliation combine, physical symptoms such as flushing or trembling in hand and voice can occur. Maybe even for a sentence they utter, they can think for a long time whether they have said the right thing in the right place. This process becomes exhausting both physically and spiritually for the individual.

To solve a problem, it is necessary to admit the problem's existence first. Instead of trying to appear self-confident, realizing that one's self-confidence is low and thinking about what one can do to solve the issue helps to prevent mental fraying that will occur. Because pretending to have something that doesn't exist is no different from being dragged into a vortex. This condition adversely affects the mental state, causing self-confidence problems experienced to intensify.