Self esteem, Self worth, Self concept. These words mean the same thing. Essentially, they all mean, how a child feels about herself. A child develops her self esteem through early messages about herself from her parents, her environment and latterly through the development of a particular talent or skill.
A child will then select messages from her environment (such as her school or sports club), which will further reinforce these messages.
If a child has poor self esteem, it will take a while to
change her negative self concept This is a process that will take time.
It is not always easy to find the source of a child’s
negative self esteem. Sometimes she may have got vague message about herself and her fantasy has filled in the rest.
Examples of low self esteem are: blaming others, unable to
say ‘no’, whining, unable to lose a game, attention seeking behaviours such as playing
the class joker, excessive shyness or withdrawn behaviours.
Practical Ways to Improve a Child’s self esteem
Below are some ideas about how to improve a child’s self
esteem:-
1.
Listen and acknowledge a child’s feelings.
2.
Accept the child as she is, treat her with
respect.
3.
Give specific and to the point praise, e.g. you
played well in the match today.
4.
Be honest, if she did not play well then that is
fine, she did her best given how she was feeling.
5.
Use ‘I’ statements rather that ‘you’ e.g. I get
really annoyed when you throw your clothes on the floor and not, ‘you are
always doing the same thing – throwing your clothes on the floor’.
6.
Give the child age appropriate responsibilities
and levels of independence and decision making responsibilities. This helps the child to
develop their sense of self, while all the time checking back with the parent.
7.
While the child need boundaries rules and
consistency, don’t be too annoyed with her when she gets things wrong. She is learning.
8.
Also think well of yourself and your partner,
make sure she hears you compliment each other.
9.
It is good for her when she hears you, as a
parent, take pride in a job that you have well done.
10.
Avoid ‘shoulds’ or ‘could haves’.
11.
Accept her judgement. E.g., if she feels bad because someone is mean to her,
that is how she feels. Better to explore this with her, such as by asking why she
feels this way, than to dispute how she feels.
12.
Explore her negative sense of self with her. See
below for an example of how to this :-
Child:
|
I am
useless at swimming.
|
Parent:
|
What makes
you say that?
|
Child:
|
I can’t breathe
properly when I am doing the breast stroke.
|
Parent:
|
Ok not yet,
but you can do the leg movement and the arm movement and given your body weight,
you are doing very well
|
Child:
|
I suppose
that is true, the other children in the class are bigger than me.
|
Generally in the
process of teasing this out with the child, the child will realise where her potential
is and as a result that she is not so bad after all. It may be that she realises
that she is better at some other activity rather than swimming and that is okay.
Optimum emotional and cognitive development of a child
occurs in a family environment. The family is best placed to create support and love, promote hope, tolerate pain and
generate positive thinking.
Remember change will
happen when a child becomes what she is and not when she tries to become what she
is not.
