Self-esteem is one of the most important but misunderstood concepts in parenting. Contrary to what many parents believe, fostering a healthy sense of her own worth will not make a child conceited, selfish, spoiled, or self-centered.
A positive self-image does not interfere with the need to humble oneself before God. Rather, healthy self-esteem describes appropriate self-acceptance, self-love, and self-confidence that become the foundation for self-improvement. When Jesus gave the command to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27), He was acknowledging that self-love and self-care are the basis of mutual regard and concern for others.
An appropriate sense of your child's innate worth is one of the most precious gifts you can give your child. Your child's self-assessment has a powerful impact on her overall happiness, academic performance, relationships, creativity, healthy risk-taking, perseverance, resilience, and problem-solving ability. Children with a low self-evaluation doubt their worthiness and develop a self-defeating attitude that makes them more vulnerable to social ills, such as school failure, peer pressure, and poor relationships.
On the other hand, a child with positive or healthy self-esteem has a strong sense of individuality and belief in her own worth. A child who feels good about herself is filled with hope for the future.
A child's family is the first setting where she experiences the love of others and draws conclusions about her value and abilities. While no parent is perfect, you can help your child develop a positive self-concept by daily striving to convey your love, acceptance, approval, interest, and confidence in your child. Parental love and devotion convinces young children of their infinite worth and helps them venture with confidence into the world. Parents who do not feel good about themselves find it difficult to raise children with positive self-concepts. If you suffer from low self-esteem, improving your own self-concept will make you a more effective parent.
A child's self-esteem represents a composite inner picture based on her conclusions about her basic worth and competence. Healthy self-esteem is built on the convictions that she is both loveable and capable, that she not only has innate worth, but also is able to handle life's challenges.
Help Your Child Feel Competent
One component of healthy self-esteem is a sense of competence and confidence. In addition to feeling loved and cherished, a child needs to have confidence in her abilities to handle life's challenges and feel responsible and capable. When a child feels confident about her abilities, she is more eager to try new experiences and to persevere in the face of difficulties. A healthy sense of competence helps prepare a child to make good choices, handle frustration, set goals, and solve problems.
The following suggestions can help promote a child's sense of self-sufficiency:
1. Provide continual encouragement for your child's efforts and praise for her accomplishments. Encouragement and praise are different.
Praise tends to focus on the outcome or end result rather than interest or effort. It emphasizes the evaluation of the one giving the praise, rather than self-approval.
While everyone appreciates words of praise, too much praise can cause pressure to perform and make a child overly dependent on the approval of others.
Encouragement focuses on your child's effort, interests, and improvement and emphasizes the process, rather than the outcome. It fosters self-approval by helping a child recognize her own strengths, interests, and self-effort.
2. Young children gain a sense of competence and confidence when daily activities occur with a measure of predictability and when acceptable behavior is clearly defined. Simple routines increase a child's confidence by allowing her to predict what comes next. Abiding by family rules helps children fulfill their parents' expectations and feel successful.
3. Children as young as toddlers and preschoolers enjoy expressing their individuality by making decisions about their clothing, play, and eating habits. Honoring children's choices, when feasible, shows respect for their individuality and builds self-identity and self-confidence.
4. Support your child's emerging independence by letting her do things for herself. Avoid comments that sound like you lack confidence in her abilities, such as: "You're too slow. Let Mommy do it." Recognize progress toward independence and demonstrate your confidence in your child.
Give your child age-appropriate responsibilities. Ask her to join you in a task and express your appreciation for her contribution. Her awkward "help" may take more time than doing the task yourself. However, the goal of helping your child become self-confident is more important than "getting the job done."
5. Your child's sense of competence is enhanced when you take time to teach and celebrate new milestones. Compliment your child's efforts as she masters each step involved in a new skill. Encourage your child to try new age-appropriate experiences. Children need to learn that healthy risk-taking will involve some failures and discouragement.
Healthy risk-taking also involves helping your child set and achieve realistic goals. Do not be too quick to let your child drop out of something or quit trying when things get tough. Instead, support her in working harder to improve a low grade or soccer skills with extra practice. Encourage her to complete the puzzle that proved more difficult than she anticipated.
6. Instead of viewing mistakes as personal flaws, help your child view her mistakes as opportunities to learn, grow, make amends, and make better choices. Fortunately, small children usually make small mistakes with small consequences. Learning from bad decisions forms the basis for future good decisions. Taking responsibility for mistakes builds self-esteem by teaching a child that her choices and actions produce consequences.
7. Learning to solve problems is a critical skill for choosing appropriate solutions to life's dilemmas. To help your child learn to solve problems, ask her to identify a dilemma and possible solutions. Then let your child suggest the possible consequences and outcomes of the solutions before choosing the best one. Finally, follow up and evaluate the outcome of the choice.
Regular family meetings provide opportunities for children to practice brainstorming solutions, with their parents' guidance, to family dilemmas such as compliance with chores.
Help Your Child Feel Valued
The following strategies will help your child understand that she is born with intrinsic value and has special significance.
1. Demonstrate respect for all life. Treat every individual as a unique child of God so your child begins learning about her own worth and mimicking those attitudes naturally. Avoid negative comments about yourself or others and do not tolerate name-calling or put-downs among siblings. Show your respect and admiration for the human diversity found within God's magnificent creation.
2. Communicate unconditional love, it's the cornerstone on which self-esteem is built. God's grace toward humanity provides the model for unconditional love that is guaranteed and permanent. Loving your child unconditionally means that there is nothing your child could do or say that would cause you to withdraw your love from her. When a child is convinced that her parents find her loveable, she is equipped to venture into the world and risk the acceptance of others.
Consider the following ways to convey unconditional love:
Daily focused attention. Whether reading to her, playing a game, taking a walk together, or having a simple conversation, spend time each day focused on your child to communicate your love and acceptance.
Frequent expressions of love. Every child needs to hear "I love you" on a daily basis. This bolsters your child's feelings of worth and helps buffer her against the teasing remarks, rejections, and criticisms of others that poke deflating holes in her self-esteem.
Acceptance and approval. Your child's eagerness to gain your approval makes her keenly aware of the ways she does not measure up to your expectations. Frequent nagging or criticizing creates a self-defeating attitude that limits a child's possibility for improvement. Instead, non-judgmental acceptance becomes internalized as self-acceptance, giving your child the confidence and courage to make constructive changes and expand her potential.
3. A sense of heritage and belonging. Family ties are forged through daily routines, family reunions, traditional celebrations, and stories about family members. Similarly, when children identify with Bible heroes, the experiences of missionaries, and the great men and women of faith, they gain a comforting sense of belonging within the family of God.