Building Self-esteem In Your Child! – By Alvira Diwan

How To Build Self-esteem In Your Child? – Written By Alvira Diwan

Self-esteem means having confidence in one’s own worth or abilities and having self-respect. A child’s self-esteem begins to form very early and continues being created day by day. The job of every parent and teacher is affirming and building self-esteem in each child. Parents responsibility is greater than the teachers because they play the most significant influence in a child’s life.

Every child is unique. As parents and teachers, we need to understand that they will have insufficiencies. And focusing on their drawbacks will lead to low self-esteem.

You may ask about the importance of developing “self-esteem” in a child?

• Kids with self-esteem believe in themselves, it is the secret of success for an individual having faith in themselves.
• They are confident and proud of the fact that they can accomplish tasks.
• They are affirmative of themselves.
• When they feel good about themselves, they have the confidence to try new things and are more likely to try their best.

Whereas, children with low self-esteem have low or no self-worth. They easily believe that they’re good for nothing when someone criticizes them. It is difficult for them to voice their opinions and they end up following the crowd.

Ways to build “self-esteem” in children –

• Teach your children with demonstrations and in detail so that they can accomplish the task easily, which will help build confidence for future tasks.
• Praise them in moderation. Praising will act as a morale booster and help to build self-esteem but overpraising may make them overconfident of their abilities.
• Acknowledge their efforts on the incompleted or failed tasks and explain to them the importance of trying.
• Focus on strengths, paying attention to what your child is good at instead of his weaknesses.
• Don’t use demoralizing words or statements. Harsh criticism will lead to the child having confidence issues.
• Develop skills and interests in various fields. Focus on what the children enjoy doing.

A child’s self-esteem is very important for their emotional health. Liking ourselves and feeling capable, are the foundations on which emotional health rests.

 

Alvira Diwan
Masters in Clinical Psychology

 

If you have any concerns or questions as parents, leave your comments below & Alvira Diwan will get back to you!