Many of our friends and acquaintances remark about how self confident and personable our two children are. We have two adult children. One of each sex. I don't know if I really know what tips there are that we did that are especially for raising confident children, but I will tell you what we did in our home and we are proud of how they turned out.

As babies, we made sure that they were given a lot of love, and the correct food and sleep. They were raised in routines that they got used to. Up in the morning at a certain time, breakfast and a bath with clean clothes on.

Then we had play time until lunch, after lunch, it was nap time. During that time, I was able to clean the house and wash clothes. Then they woke up in the afternoon and were up until after supper, then went to bed at an early time.

As they grew older the times changed and they were allowed to stay up longer and longer, but we always had a routine that was followed. They knew what was expected of them.

We encouraged them to join after school activities, whether it be sports, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Band, anything that would get them involved with other kids, rather than sit at home and watch TV. We made sure that they did their homework every night helping them as necessary. Since they had always been on a regular schedule from the time they were born for getting up in the morning, we had no problems getting them up for school and they were not too tired to go to school. We never received reports from the teachers saying they were falling asleep in class.

We always treated them with respect as we did their friends. They were spoke to as young adults and not as babies or small children. We may of phrased the language to their age, but it was as an adult.

We also encouraged them to come to us with their problems and not to lie to us. We explained to them that telling us the truth right away was much better than lying to us and our finding out at a later time.

We also encouraged them to be respectful of our friends and to be around them and to talk to them.

They were taken to Church and Sunday School most Sundays. This is my belief, others my not hold this belief. But our family did.

We spent a lot of time around their Grandparents and Great-Grandparents and they learned to interact with the older generation.

But the most important ingredient is the first thing I said and that is Love.

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