Self-esteem is a person’s overall subjective sense of personal worth or value. The development of a healthy self-esteem is fundamental to the wellbeing of children and teenagers. Self-esteem gives children confidence to try new things and try again when things don’t go as planned, do things that they might not enjoy or might not be naturally good at, and face challenges rather than avoid them. Having a low self-esteem can contribute to a variety of mental health disorders, including anxiety disorders and depressive disorders.
Like many aspects of child development, self-esteem is influenced by two interacting forces – nature and nurture. Children’s inborn temperament (nature) influences their developing self-esteem but so too do their interactions with their family and the social environment (nurture).
Research shows that an authoritative parenting style is key in determining a healthy self-esteem. An authoritative parenting style is characterised by high levels of warmth, responsiveness, and supportiveness. Authoritative parents have reasonable demands and they attempt to control their child’s behaviour by explaining rules, discussing and reasoning.
You can help your child develop a positive self-esteem by adopting the following authoritative parenting practices:
- You can be a role model for your child by being positive, assertive and resilient yourself. For example, if you’ve baked a cake that doesn’t taste good, you can say, “It doesn’t matter. I’ll try another recipe next time”. Or if you get some negative feedback at work, you can say, “That’s hard to hear, but I can also learn from it”.
- Teach your child to practice making positive self-statements. Self-talk is very important in everything we do. Negative self-talk can be a cause of depression and anxiety. What we think determines how we feel and how we feel determines how we behave. Therefore, it is important to teach children to be positive about how they “talk to themselves.” Some examples of useful self-talk are: “I can get this problem, if I just keep trying.” “It’s OK if our team lost today. We all tried our best and you can’t win them all.” “It makes me feel good to help others even if the person doesn’t notice or thank me.”
- Always praise your child for having a go at something.
- Celebrate your child’s abilities and achievements by pointing out the non-academic things your child is good at. It might be sport, music, drama, or being kind and friendly or an excellent cook.
- Encourage your child to notice the positive things in their life and see that any difficulties they might be facing are only one small part of who they are.
- Encourage your child to work out what they need to help them – for example, at school do written instructions and diagrams help them, or do they prefer spoken instructions?
- Make time to be with and listen to your child and to have fun together. This sends the message that they are special, important and worth spending time with.
- Encourage your child to try new things. Realising that they can learn with practice and persistence will help your child keep going when things are hard.
- Give your child the chance to take on family responsibilities and make their own decisions and choices. A sense of control is a powerful self-esteem builder.
- Encourage your child to ask for what they want assertively, pointing out that there is no guarantee that they will get it. Reinforce them for asking and avoid anticipating their desires.
- Support but don’t overprotect your child. You can do this by expecting your child to do their best and stick with tasks like homework or new activities, despite any challenges they might face.
- Give your child the opportunity to try new things like cooking, chess or photography. If you do these activities with your child, it’s a good way to make sure your child experiences success and has fun as they build new skills.