A child with healthy self esteem will act independently, take on responsibility, face frustration, learn from mistakes, express his emotion in a safe way, be confident and relaxed.
Low self esteem
On the contrary, a child with low self esteem will be dependent, easily frustrated and influenced by others, complaining, blame others and may exhibit emotional problems. Labelling and comparing children with others will low the self esteem of the children.
How to develop healthy self esteem
1. Give Attention
Children measure love in term of T-I-M-E. When you spend time with them with attention, they feel loved. It helps to build self esteem of the children. You can play with your children e.g. kicking football, role playing game, playing toys with them together. They will not remember the toys you bought to them when they were young. However, they will remember the important moment with you while you are doing something with them together and the way you are interacting with them.
2. Affirmation
Affirm the child's good characters and behaviour e.g. responsible, caring, obedient and so on. For instance, a father praised the child's effort to put the shoes in the shoe rack. He said, "You are very orderly because you tidy up the shoes."
Before we go to sleep, my husband and I go to the bedside of each child and tell them how important and wonderful they are and affirm their good characters and behaviour. It helps to build the bond with the children and enhance their self-esteem.
3. Unconditional Love
Parents give unconditional love to their children. They are totally accepting their children as who they are. Parent s can accept their strengths and weaknesses. On one hand, parents can encourage them to develop the good character quality. On the other hand, parents need to point out to their children what kind of behaviour and attitude that is not right and how to improve it. Parents need to assure their children that they love them disregard of their behaviour and motivate them to improve their behaviour and attitude. With unconditional love as the basis, it helps the children to improve their self esteem.
Parents involvement is very important in the development of their children. They give constant effort and time to affirm their children, they help their children to feel loved and secured. Thus, they will feel good about themselves and raise their self esteem.
For many people self-esteem is a problem that can be a lifelong issue and one that can seriously impact both personal and professional relationships. While many would seek to raise their self-esteem, they may find that this is easier said than done, as this is a tremendously sensitive and delicate issue. In order to raise one's self-esteem, it is critically important to understand the nature of self-esteem and how it develops as well as the important link between self-esteem and success.
Generally, self-esteem is relate to your view of yourself, how others view you, your abilities and your accomplishments. Low self-esteem develops when an individual feels that they will fail at tasks they attempt or when they think that others do not think highly of them and their accomplishments.
Self esteem touches every aspect of our lives; both public and private. Therefore it can impact how we interact with our families, our co-workers and those we are involved with on a social level. Even hobbies can be affected negatively or positively by self-esteem. Due to the fact that self-esteem is an integral part of developing a happy, successful life and career, the lack of self-esteem can result in very serious situations. Low self-esteem has been linked to depression and suicidal thoughts.
Fortunately, there are a number of ways that an individual can go about raising their self-esteem. In situations in which low self-esteem is resulting in thoughts of self-harm or harm to others, it is critically important to obtain counseling in order to address these issues. In milder situations, low self-esteem can be treated in a variety of manners that involve relative privacy.
One of the most successful ways to treat low self-esteem is by addressing and reviewing those issues in the past that may have resulted in a negative mindset. In many cases, the root issues may have involved either accomplishments that were attempted but not achieved or perhaps an individual from the past who caused hurt with belittling comments. Whatever the root issue may happens to be, the key to overcoming low self-esteem involves taking the time to recognize the impact the issue has had on your current life and then casting it away from you. Imagery techniques can be particularly useful in this context. Imagine tossing the source of your low self-esteem far away from you.
Other techniques that are frequently used to raise self-esteem involve detailed record keeping. You may be quite surprised to find that you are good at a number of things. Toward that end, make a point to keep a record of all your accomplishment; even if they may seem minor or insignificant. Review these regularly and eventually your low self-esteem will be replaced with high self-esteem.
Both Wai Chong Mak & Aaron Crawford are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Wai Chong Mak has sinced written about articles on various topics from Self Esteem, Parenting and Children. Ms Mak Wai Chong, a mother of 3 children, is a freelance trainer and counsellor. She has worked as social worker and counsellor for 17 years. Visit her website at