Home & Family Facts and Notes

What is self-esteem? Self-esteem is the collection of beliefs or feelings that we have about ourselves, or our ’self perceptions.’ How we define ourselves influences our motivations, attitudes, and behaviors, and affects our emotional judgment.

What factors make up self-esteem? Self-confidence, pride, self-sufficiency, self-respect, and independence all combine to make self-esteem. The majority of our self-esteem is developed during childhood. Especially in kids, self-esteem constantly changes as we experience different social interactions and new events.

A child with high self-esteem is the most important way to ensure his or her own personal safety. Keeping them away from physical harm comes afterward.

Keeping your outlook positive will help your child maintain a positive self-esteem. Praising them when they learn, try or accomplish things will help your child feel confident that they are good at those things, and foster their growing sense of positive self-esteem.

But praise and positive reinforcement alone will not make children feel better automatically. Providing them with lots of love, care, and understanding is equally significant. Children who are happy and confident may still experience low self-esteem because they do not feel loved. Likewise, children who are loved and pampered at home may still feel inadequate and incompetent, thus ending up with low self-esteem. Hence, a balance of both should be present.

Giving constructive communication, positive messages, and carefully delivering criticism will lead to good self-esteem. Use these tips to improve a child’s self-perceptions.

1. Limit the “Don’ts” to the barest minimum. State your requests positively. Too many negative words in your sentences will only lead to a child’s self doubt.

2. Listen to your child. Parents often make the mistake of thinking their words are more important than their child, which makes child has lower self-esteem.

3. Establish eye contact. Be a good model of conversation by giving kids your full attention. This communicates that you are interested in what they are saying, and that you are stressing a noteworthy idea, as well.

4. Make sure you have conversations One person shouldn’t do all the talking. Likewise, kids must learn only one person should talk at a time. Everyone can’t speak at once. Make sure they know that if more than one person is trying to talk, they won’t understand a thing.

5. Keep a calm, uncritical, and non-irritable manner when explaining. Keep your “speech” concise. Use language that kids will easily understand, explaining to them what they need to do, and why they should or should not do it. Speaking in a calm tone also keeps panic from rising within them.

6. Criticisms should still be present. We should also take notice of shortcomings or misbehavior as we see it or learn about it. Explain why an action is not acceptable, and allow kids to think of ways to avoid doing it again.

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