Over the past few years, a hot topic in parenting has been whether or not parents should focus on building their children’s self esteem.
As a teacher and as a parent, I am a firm believer that part of my parenting responsibilities include helping our children build a strong self esteem. Yes, that is part of our job.
Did you know that kids who have positive feelings about themselves have an easier time dealing with conflict and the pressures of life. They are also happier, more optimistic and find more joy in life. Research is also showing that a healthy self esteem is the greatest defense against bullying.
When children have positive self esteems they feel in control of their lives and know how to stand up for themselves. They feel more confident in making their own decisions and are better able to maintain healthy relationships as they get older.
Children with low self esteem don’t feel like they can handle challenges and feel frustration and anxiety when faced with life challenges. They regularly feel that they are not good enough and can’t do anything correctly. They fell more depression and tend to withdraw in situations. Not to mention that low self esteem leads to behavior problems, poor school performance, trouble with friendships and relationships with adults.
Anything I can do to help our children feel better about themselves, I want to do!
How can we help our kids increase their self-esteem? Here are some suggestions.
Teach Our Children How to Handle Conflict and Failure – Life is full of conflict and we all have to deal with failure. We need to teach our children how to deal with these hard things. It will empower them. They need to know that it doesn’t make them lesser of a person to fail. But instead teach them how to deal with it.
Provide Challenges For Our Children – We have to provide challenges for our children, that they can overcome. When they overcome small challenges, it builds their belief in themselves. They take those beliefs into new situations and feel strong about their ability to do hard things.
Set Our Children Up For Success – Help your child develop talents and acquire skills that they enjoy and excel in. Provide opportunities for them to participate in activities that encourage cooperation instead of competition.
Don’t Set Our Children Up To Fail – Embarrassing our children to “teach” them will not help them feel better about themselves. Imposing unrealistic expectations and challenges so they fail will not make them fell better about themselves either.
Show Love – Always do all things out of love. Be attentive, show affection and when there is need for discipline, always follow with an increase of love. Withholding love should never be used as punishment or as a result of a child’s mistake. Never ever withhold love.
Be Careful With What We Say – Our children are very sensitive to everything we say. We need to be careful with the words that come out of our mouths. 90% of what we say should be uplifting. The other 10% can be disciplinary. Even when our children don’t succeed, we should still praise them for the energy effort and skill they put forth.
Be a Good Role Model – We can’t say negative things about ourselves. If we are always putting ourselves down, and saying negative things about our abilities, we will raise children who feel the same way. We need to be good role models and speak positively about who we are, what we look like, and the effort we are putting in to our own lives.
Create a Safe Home Environment – It is vital that our children feel safe at home. Watching parents fight and argue makes for depressed children. When children bring home problems from school, express concerns and ask questions, we need to be patient and listen. They need to always know they can express themselves at home and they will be respected and cared for, regardless.
Spend time with our children – Stop multitasking. As mother’s we are trying to juggle so many things while we listen and spent time with our kids. We need to put everything down and come down to their level. Look them in the eye and make sure we are in the moment. Kids know when we are pretending to pay attention, but our minds are else where.
Stop Labeling Our Children – All of us are searching for an identity. It defines us and helps us relate to other people and figure out where we belong. Our kids will live up to our labels, good or bad, we need to be careful.
Give Positive and Accurate Feedback.
We cannot underestimate our influence on our children. They look to us for all things. How wonderful to know that we can help them believe in themselves. We can help them build positive thoughts and feelings about their abilities. Starting young will make their lives more manageable and set them up to be strong and adjusted adults.
What an important job we have.
How do you help your children build their self-esteem?
Have a question, or just want to say hello? You can find me at FamilyVolley.com. On Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. Or send me an email. I love making new friends.
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Laura says
To build a positive, growth mindset, praise your child’s hard work (rather than intelligence). Kids who are praised for hard work develop persistence and take charge of their learning.
Laurie says
How do I help my grand daughter? Her life has been turned upside down .
Enriqueta says
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your email subscription link or newsletter service.
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