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Building your child’s self-esteem is an important step toward helping him or her become a confident adolescent and adult.
Featured here are ideas to help your child develop confidence.
Set goals
Help your child learn to set and achieve goals.
At the beginning of the week, help your child identify one challenging—but attainable—goal. It might be turning in a book report on time or doing well on a spelling test. Have your child write the goal on a piece of paper and post it on the refrigerator or a bulletin board.
Discuss with your child how she will accomplish her goal. Help your child break the goal down into smaller steps. For example, “You could read two chapters every day. Then you can spend a day writing your report and another day revising it.”
As the week progresses, ask how things are going. If problems come up, talk about possible solutions. If your child falls behind in reading, for example, a 10-minute extension of bedtime might encourage her to catch up. At the end of the week, help your child evaluate how well she did. Did she achieve her goal? Why or why not? Most important, praise your child for trying. Then set a new goal for next week.
Be constructive
Children with high self-esteem have parents who
- Love and accept them. Children with high self-esteem know their parents love them, no matter what they do. All children misbehave. But parents who build self-esteem criticize the behaviour, not the child. They might say, “I love you, but I do not approve of your behaviour right now.”
- See something special in them. These parents look for something special in each of their children. They do not compare one child unfavourably with another. A child who believes he is a good athlete or a good musician is less afraid to learn new skills. A child who believes she is talented in math or science will be ready to learn.
- Set limits. It is confusing for a child to have too much freedom. When children know their parents care enough to set some rules, they actually feel more freedom to try their wings.
- Encourage individuality. These parents allow for a child’s individual flexibility within the limits they have set.
Be positive
Children need to hear the following messages:
- You are loved.
- You are secure.
- You matter.
- You are growing up.
Choose words that encourage children
Words that encourage
- Knowing you, I’m sure you’ll do fine.
- You can do it if you try.
- I have faith in you.
- You’re doing fine.
- I can see you put effort into that.
- You’ll figure it out.
- That was a good try. Don’t worry about the mistake.
- That’s a challenge, but I’m sure you’ll do fine.
Avoid words that discourage children
Words that discourage
- Knowing you, I think you should do more.
- You usually make mistakes, so be careful.
- I doubt that you can do it.
- You can do better.
- That’s a good job, but it isn’t perfect.
- Better get some help.
- If you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all.
- That looks too difficult for you to try.
Source:
Parents make the difference! published by The Parent Institute,
www.parent-institute.com
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