Mom, Why Am I Nobody: How To Raise A Child's Self-esteem And Make Him Self-confident

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

One of the most striking differences between humans and any other species on earth is self-awareness. We understand who we are and what we are.

In addition to being able to recognize ourselves in the mirror and make decisions based on our interests, self-awareness allows us to compare ourselves with others.

"It is foolish to consider yourself the strongest or the smartest, there is definitely someone smarter or stronger in the world." Why do we think so and where do we get such thoughts at all? The answer is our self-esteem.

Of course, in assessing yourself it is better to adhere to the golden mean, which not everyone succeeds. Therefore, often instead of adequate, we see in people overestimated or underestimated.

We are what our parents raised us to be

Low or high self-esteem is formed in a person in the first 5 years of his life.

During this time, the child realizes the concept of "I am good" or "I am bad" mainly from the words of the parents and only slightly focuses on external factors.

After 5 years and until adolescence, the perception of children is increasingly sharpened towards communication with friends, personal achievements in school or sports and other factors beyond the control of parents.

From 12-13 years old, a child is especially susceptible to all factors that affect his character and especially self-esteem.

Girls and boys are as open as possible to everything new, but they are also vulnerable and sensitive to the thoughtless words and actions of their parents.

We do not always have the opportunity to find out where and what exactly our children are doing, but guardianship should sooner or later be replaced by moderate care and support for a growing personality.

Little boys become men and little girls become women.

Self-esteem plays one of the most important roles in personality formation. That is why you need to get rid of all delusions and learn how to properly encourage and motivate your children.

The art of being a parent

Parents' actions always have the best intentions. Even using physical force, an unrestrained dad or mom wants to avoid hurting the child.

They want to help, to convey to their children that they are guilty and that they cannot do that.

You yourself know where the road of good intentions leads, so be prepared to see very familiar parenting methods in the list of parenting mistakes.

1. Don't compare your child with others

Self-esteem is formed in relation to the achievements of others - I am stronger than this girl, I am weaker than this boy. Let us examine these two examples and follow their development in the child's mind.

"I am stronger than this girl." Self-esteem increases, because the child is better than someone else. But if it is better, then it gives some opportunities and privileges.

You can offend a weak person and not get back, you can take away a toy from him, you can laugh at him and increase your authority due to this.

"I am weaker than this boy." Self-esteem goes down, because the child has been surpassed in some way. A strong boy is not perceived by a child as an ordinary child who has become strong.

"Strong" and "this boy" are combined into one image. This is evident even years later, when at the reunion school bullies can dominate the already more successful "nerds" and "nerds".

Do not start comparing your child to other children, rather track his personal progress and compare them with past results.

Did your son get a bad grade? Check out his past scores in the same subject.

If they were worse - the child, albeit slowly, but develops. If it's better, your son won't have anyone to compare himself with, except himself. This creates motivation.

2. Do not evaluate the child, evaluate his deed

"You are a bad boy", "you are a naughty daughter" - exclude such expressions from your conversations with children.

You are the authority and your words are the truth. At least, this is how the child perceives your criticism and comments on a subconscious level.

By the age of 5, children learn to distinguish between their personality and their actions. Does a broken vase make you a villain or a bad person?

So why are you labeling your child for the most harmless pranks or accidental misconduct?

"You are mischievous, disobedient, lazy!" Are not the best words for a child. “You are lazy, irresponsible, lack of initiative” - and these phrases can kill any motivation in children.

“You're stupid. You're a fool. You can't do anything normally. You are not a man”- words that are remembered for a lifetime and cause complexes.

If you respect yourself, never say something like that to your loved one.

A completely different effect will be if you attribute all these qualities not to the child himself, but to his actions. Agree, “you are stupid” and “you acted stupidly” evoke completely different emotions.

Just do not forget the most important rule of criticism - after the comment, be ready to offer the correct option for action.

This will increase your credibility in the eyes of the child and will not allow you to make mistakes next time. Do you want to understand how to raise self-esteem in children?

3. Don't turn a blind eye to your kids' school conflicts

When a child is offended at school, the parents either do not intervene, considering it child's play, or they publicly scold the offender, dooming the child to isolation and even greater resentment and insults.

They give absolutely no advice to their children.

None of these options lead to a resolution of the conflict. In the first situation, you do not influence, you place all the responsibility on the child, even though he has no idea what to do or how to act.

In the second situation, you solve all the problems for the child, preventing him from showing himself.

Have you already figured out what to do? Stick to the middle ground and clearly control your participation in school conflict. Take any Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan movie as a role model.

It is there that the line of the student and the teacher who teaches the young man martial skills is most often found. The master does not send a young man into battle without preparation, but he also does not solve all problems for him.

He instructs and prepares him to overcome obstacles. Only this approach turns the student into a real hero.

Become a wise teacher for your child. Take it to a whole new level - learn the psychology of childhood conflict, school hierarchy and how to deal with it.

Teach this knowledge to the child and send him to the "battle". Even if not the first time, children quickly learn to cope with their problems on their own, not forgetting the one who taught them this.

4. Don't make yourself an ideal

Many parents are afraid to show their weakness or defenselessness in front of their child. This really needs to be done when the child is small and he cannot stop seeing his parents as superheroes, but after 3-4 years, children are quite ready for a more real look at mom and dad.

A child's low self-esteem can increase if you reveal a little truth. Mom can oversalt the soup, adjust the washing machine incorrectly, accidentally break the plate.

Dad may not know how to remove a virus from his computer, he may accidentally hit himself on the finger with a hammer, or buy expired milk at the supermarket.

Nobody is perfect - that's what a child needs to understand in order to develop adequate self-esteem. If someone is always to blame for the troubles of mom and dad, except for themselves, then in “ideal” conditions they are never wrong and are always right.

Why then is the child not like that? Maybe he was born that way - wrong? Don't let your kids think that they are by default worse than others, especially their parents.

If you made a mistake, draw the child's attention to this and at the end give the moral: “Oh, I didn't look at the recipe and put ordinary sugar instead of powdered sugar.

You need to be careful, then next time the cake will turn out perfect!.

5. Don't discount

Children are not good or bad. But sometimes we forget about it. If you do not know how to increase self-esteem in a child, then in your speech the phrase “You are constantly late!

How long can I wait for you? These words can really offend, because you simply devalued those cases when the child, on purpose or not, did everything on time.

When your children have “persistent” problems, you need to take assessment more seriously.

Periodic remarks will induce in the child a desire to improve, for example, if you scolded your daughter for scattered dresses, then the next time she will put them in place and wait for your reaction.

It's a pity, but we are used to taking all good things for granted, because the efforts of your daughter, most likely, will not cause a single drop of emotion on your part.

This will disappoint her and the next time she will listen to your lamentations with less enthusiasm.

How to raise self-esteem in a child? Try not only to scold, but also to praise. Especially when the praise is about correcting your wrongdoing. This is the attention your kids need.

A child's self-esteem is not only the result of your upbringing

Remember that a child builds self-esteem by absorbing parental criticism, compliments from the opposite sex, peer insults, and many other manifestations of human interaction.

It is possible to impose self-esteem on a teenager on his own only if he is educated at home and completely isolated from the outside world.

This approach is fraught with many dire consequences, and therefore you will have to come to terms with the inherent role of the environment.

Instead, focus your attention on preparing your child for external contact. Whether they are 7 or 15, teach your children how to properly respond to teachers' comments, insults from bullies and ridicule from enemies.

Explain that you only need to respond to the assessment of others if they wish him well. The teacher's note: "From now on, be more careful when writing a dictation" is a message that will help a child become better and write better quality next time.

But certainly the remark of a neighbor's boy: "You have a huge nose" was made only with the purpose of offending, and therefore you should not pay attention to such a statement.

In this way, you will teach your child to distinguish between objective criticism and empty insignificant words and develop adequate self-esteem.