Self-esteem is ones complex of beliefs about himself, which influences the feelings and actions of that person. To illustrate this statement – here is the image of a child with high and low self-esteem.
High self-esteem: child is more optimistic and courageous, tends to have a lot of friends and communications, has a positive self talk, not easily frustrated, freely expresses himself, laughs a lot, takes responsibility, is ready for new experiences and tasks.
Low self-esteem: child is more pessimistic and lacks the courage, mostly he is loner, has difficulties in making new friends and communications, easily frustrated, full of self criticism, hardly starts something new, is very unconfident about his abilities and talents.
If you have noticed some of the low self-esteem signs in your child it is really a great time to start a serious work to raise child self-esteem. As all parents you want your child to lead a happy successful life. High levels of self-esteem can extremely help your child to develop into confident, happy person.
The period when child is very susceptible to what parents say and do is the time till about 5-6 years. This is the time when a child selects his parent as a VIP and authority. Everything you do and say is highly important to your child and you are the one that will determine your child’s self-esteem during this period. Your role in developing child’s self-esteem of course does not end at the age of 6, it continues, but has less impact as child is also influenced by the society and other informational sources. You have to realize that you child self-esteem is absolutely your responsibility and you can do lots of things to raise or decrease it.
5 things to do to increase child’s self-esteem:
1. Become a role model. Children, as I already mentioned, think of their parents as an etalon to achieve. So that is very important that you too act like a confident, harmonized person. Try not to express aggressiveness in front of the child if something goes wrong. Do not use bad self-talk and judgments. Show your child that you take all the responsibility about the problem and are searching for a solution. As a child always replay what he has seen, he will try to act the same way with his own problems in life.
2. Praise your children more that criticize. Your child needs praise for everything he does. He is expecting praise. If he does not get it he feels unaccepted, unappreciated, and even unworthy. Every time you praise your child for some activity, you are motivating him to be more active and creative, increase his interest to do more, to discover more, to learn more. Connect your praise with the action not the personality. Say: “You cleaned your room perfectly well” rather then “You are a good boy. Your room is so clean”. If you make conditional statements about child’s personality in connection to his actions, you will develop the addiction of child to get appreciation to prove he is a good person. Teach your child that actions are just action and that they can be changed. They have nothing common with the personality.
3. Learn the right way to criticize. Of course there will be times when you do not agree with some of your child actions. Parents usually yell and shout at children, name them with bad words. That is wrong thing to do. If you shout: “You are stupid”, you put the idea in the child’s mind which he will continuously replay. It surely will decrease his self-esteem. But if you say: “I do not like the way you acted upon this situation. There is much better solution for this problem that I want to discuss with you”, you disconnect actions from the personality and make your child think about other ways to rule the specific situation.
4. Involve your child in many family things. Give him tasks that only he is in charge. Develop child’s responsibility. Let him learn more new things. Do not criticize him for the experiments. Child has to develop a habit of doing new thing and feel free to explore. That way he will feel much more safe and courageous in the adult life. He will not fear new tasks needed for success. Teach your child to see more that one solution to the situation. Talk with your child more and explain how do things work, but let him decide what to do.
5. Teach your child to use positive self talk. Positive talk has proved to help in different situations when self criticism activates. Teach your child to find his own talent and abilities, his positive sides to concentrate on when tough situations happen in his life. If your child will learn this technique, he will easily handle situations in adolescence, when many complexes tend to develop.
Spend more time with your child. Pay more attention to him. This time totally pays off, when you do not have to kill time worrying about your child in the future, as you are absolutely sure your child will make the right decision, will be able to handle the situation, that he is ready to live a healthy and happy life.
Self-esteem is ones complex of beliefs about himself, which influences the feelings and actions of that person. To illustrate this statement – here is the image of a child with high and low self-esteem.
Edward Rybakov is the owner of http://www.self-esteem-guide.com – your first resource for self esteem building tips, techniques, and tricks.
