Healthy self-esteem is like a child’s armour against the challenges of the world. Kids who know their strengths and weaknesses and feel good about themselves seem to have an easier time handling conflicts and resisting negative pressures. They tend to smile more readily and enjoy life. These kids are realistic and generally optimistic.
Self-esteem is your child’s passport to a lifetime of mental health and social happiness. It’s the foundation of a child’s well-being and the key to success as an adult. At all ages, how you feel about yourself affects how you act.
The child must think of his self as being someone who can make things happen and who is worthy of love. Parents are the main source of a child’s sense of self-worth. I would say every child has an inborn trait of self esteem. When a child looks in the mirror, he smiles because he likes the person he sees. He looks inside himself and is comfortable with the person he sees. This is a main trigger to self esteem.
Responsiveness is the key to infant self-value. Baby gives a cue, for example, crying to be fed or comforted. You as a mother of father respond promptly and consistently.
As the baby gets older it becomes important for him to learn how to deal with healthy frustration when his cues are not responded to immediately, as this will teach him to adjust to change. But he should always feel that you are there for him; that’s the message on which baby builds his sense of self.
Self-esteem can be defined as feeling capable of doing something while also feeling loved. A child who is happy with an achievement but does not feel loved may eventually experience low self-esteem. Likewise, a child who feels loved but is hesitant about his or her own abilities can also develop low self-esteem. Healthy self-esteem comes when a good balance is maintained.
Start the exercise of forcing yourself to stand back while your child takes healthy risks at an early stage itself. To face the world with confidence, kids have to take chances, make choices and take responsibility for them. In building self-esteem, kids also need opportunities to demonstrate their competence and feel that their
contribution is valuable. At home, that means asking them to help with cooking, setting the table and making beds.
But the most important factor is to let yourself face and rectify the much needed changes in your own character.
Most of the behavioural problems of a child stems up come from poor self-worth in his parents. How people value themselves, get along with others, perform at school, achieve at work and relate in marriage, all stem from strength of their self-image. If
you raise a confident child that grows up with a healthy self-worth, it means he has a realistic understanding of his strengths and weaknesses, enjoying the strengths and working on the problem areas. Because there is such a strong parallel between how your child feels about himself and how he acts, it is vital to discipline to raise a confident child.
Parenting is therapeutic. In caring for your child you often heal yourself. Our children bring out the best and the worst in us. Many traits of a child’s self-esteem are acquired, not inherited. But there are of course certain parenting traits and certain character traits, such as anger, fearfulness etc that are passed from generation to generation. If you suffer from low self-confidence, take steps to heal yourself.
Having a baby gives you the chance to become the parent you wish you had.
