How Concerned Are You About Your Child's Self Esteem?

I was listening to the radio the other day after dropping my husband off at work (I needed the car, for once). I didn’t get to catch a lot of the show, but they were talking about how parents are overly concerned with their children’s self esteem.

We all know how true that is these days. Parents want to tell their children they are the best at whatever it is they want to do. And, as the show pointed out, it leaves children with inflated egos rather than a realistic assessment of their own abilities.

One caller pointed out that there’s a problem with just telling parents they need to give their children a realistic view of their own abilities. You tell a child that he or she is just average, and that’s all they’ll ever expect of themselves.

But I also felt that caller was missing some of the point. The trouble has much to do with telling kids they did great no matter what. Not every child is a sports star, top student, etc. Praising every effort a child makes without concern for how well he or she really did means it’s harder to learn from experience.

I think one of the best bits of advice I read was not to praise your child’s inherent ability. Rather, praise the effort. “You worked hard on that assignment” can be much better for your child to hear than “You’re so smart.”

I think there’s a balance that we as parents need to strike. Praise your children as you help them to understand where they can improve. Allow them to understand that it takes hard work to acheive their dreams, but also that not everyone will be a CEO or sports star.

This can be a difficult point to make. You want your child to believe anything is possible. But helping them to understand just how hard it can be to reach their highest goals can help them to realize how much work they’ll have to do.

There was also a very good point that you cannot give self esteem. Self esteem comes from doing. If everyone gets a trophy, suddenly it’s not special anymore.

I do believe that every child has something that he or she is good at. He or she may not be good at the things he or she would rather be good at, but you can use the skill in another area as an example to encourage improvement.

I always like to remind my daughter when she talks about something being “too hard” that another skill she has was once “too hard.” It takes time to develop a new skill, and few come about without effort. Once she learns how to do something, she has something to be legitimately proud of.

Sometimes being a good parent means letting your child fail. Failure is a lesson we all have to learn, and what better time than when you have a loving parent to help you look at what happened? Stop worrying about self esteem and start looking at what your child does well, and what he or she wants to do better at. Those are much better sources of solid self esteem.

[tags]children,family,kids,self esteem[/tags]