Fostering Self-Esteem in children

Fostering Self-Esteem in children

What is Self-Esteem?

The idea of feeling good about oneself is called self-esteem. Self-esteem or self-regard is a thing that influences a person's mental well-being, motivation, and overall quality of life. Self-esteem should be at its moderate level. Too high or too low self-esteem creates a lot of problems. Having good self-esteem doesn't mean that a person is arrogant or self-conceited.

We can define self-esteem as how much we value and like ourselves despite harsh circumstances. Many factors expose a person's self-esteem. Self-regard means feeling worth and self-respect about yourself.

Fostering self-esteem in your children means that they should feel proud about what they do.

 The purpose of foster self-esteem in children means that they should realize their identity and accept themselves. They should not feel bad or hate themselves even when they make mistakes.

Developing self-esteem in children depends upon the parent's attitude and behavior. 

We can divide self-esteem into two categories:-

1. High self-esteem

2. Low self-esteem

Children with high self-esteem

• Feel proudest of what they do.
• Positively think about themselves.
• Believe in their abilities.

Children with low self-esteem

• Always criticize themselves.
• Think about their failures rather than about their success.
• Ignore their positive qualities.
• Consider themselves inferior.
• Lack of confidence
• Always doubt that they can never perform well in any field.
• Always blame themselves when things don't work well.

Causes of low self-esteem in children

Fostering Self-Esteem in children

Many factors play a role in a child's low self-esteem. Some of the major causes of a child's low self-esteem include:-

• One of the major causes of a child's low self-esteem is unhappy childhood when teachers, neighbors, and especially parents' attitude with the child is critical.
• Stressful events in life such as financial problems and poor academic performance can cause low self-esteem in a child.
• Any chronic disease or physical disability can also be the cause of low self-esteem in a child.
• Comparison of children with their siblings or age fellows plays its role in fostering low self-esteem in children.
• When parents overreact to their children's mistakes, in this situation, they start to blame themselves and feel unimportant about which fosters feelings of low self-regard in them.
• Fear of punishment, strict rules, and pressure to perform well in exams can be some of the causes of low self-acceptance in themselves.
• Bullying by parents, teachers, siblings, and playmates creates low self-esteem in children.
• Childhood trauma as physical or emotional disaster or any illness creates many problems in children, and low self-esteem is one of them.
• Parents or guardians with mental health issues have extreme impacts on children's self-esteem.
• Inconsistency in sleep patterns or not getting enough sleep can increase a child's stress level. They feel tired the whole day and, this can affect their productivity and leads them to low self-esteem.

How to Foster a Child's self-esteem

Fostering Self-Esteem in children

You can foster your child's self-esteem if you consider the following strategies:-

• Fostering self-esteem in your child is not an easy task. As a parent, there came such situations in life when we feel depressed, frustrated, and angry but, we should try our best not to express these feelings in front of our children. 

If we do so, they blame themselves for our frustrated mood, and this thing will crush their confidence level. Try to stay calm in front of your child.

• If you want to foster your child's self-esteem, you will have to show your child a lot of love and acceptance.
• Make your toddler realize by your love that they are an integral part of your life. Give time to your child and play with them. Show your interest in their activities.
• Don't expect too much from your child because they can perform very well in some activities and not good in others. Don't humiliate your child for not performing well in exams. Instead, you encourage them by saying that they can do well next time.
• Keep one thing in mind that excessive praise and compliments harm than good. Let your children try things of their own, fail, and try again. 

But if you will over-praise them and say that, "you are doing a fantastic job," but in reality, they are not doing so. In this way, they will not realize their mistakes and will never learn to accept their failure. So you're overpraising will hurt their feelings.

• Kids never concentrate on your words but observe your actions. So as a good parent, show yourself as a good role model. If you value yourself and your needs, your child will do the same. Your way of looking at the bright side in everything and your optimistic attitude will help them to build assertions and self-esteem in themselves.
• Believe in your child that they have the skills to tackle their obstacles.

Activities to promote self-esteem in toddlers

To develop self-esteem in your children, encourage them to take challenges and help them to learn from their mistakes. Try to guide your child on how to solve their problems but never try to interfere in their matters.

• Before going on a family trip, always encourage your child to pack their essential things by themselves. But if they forget to pack something, remind them by saying, "Did you pack everything or forget some toys or clothes" instead of saying, "why you forget your football or water bottle." Help your children to learn from their mistakes instead of considering their mistakes as failures.
• Develop your child's habit of writing a diary every night before going to bed about the activities which have happened throughout the day. This thing will encourage your child to focus on the positive activities from their day.
• By fostering your child's self-esteem, involve them in environmental activities such as watering the plants, taking care of the pets, or washing the dishes. Give compliments to your child by performing these activities such as you can say, " pets are looking happy and healthy because "you taking good care of them and giving them food on time."