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Building Healthly Self Esteem In Our Children
By Christine Carter
We hear from all the professionals how imperative a strong self esteem in childhood really is, and there are undoubtedly A lot of opinions about how best to achieve it. It's a significant part of being a parent, and parents play an absolutely essential role in helping to promote a positive and positive self esteem in their kids. In large part, self esteem is learned, and much of that learning occurs at home during childhood.
Contrary to what many parents might assume, a strong self esteem doesn't always make children overly vain or self centered. Kids that have been taught to cultivate their self worth properly are not going to be spoiled or self-centered as a result. A positive and healthy self worth fosters self confidence, appreciation and self love that is appropriate to becoming the foundation for a child to move toward improvement and progression in adulthood.
There is no absolute in kids, most everyone knows that. No kid is precisely like the next, and all will react to issues differently. With that in mind, low self esteem in your children might lead them to have difficulty keeping friends, become easily disheartened and moody, frequently put those around them down, and even show signs they have a difficult time with problem solving skills.
Their children with a low self worth will lack the assurance in themselves to attempt new things and commonly become stalled assuming they can't improve, seek out new opportunities, or move on.
It is important to remember that young children don't feel good about themselves all the time or have a good self worth in every circumstance or situation. Just as a result of human nature, children may feel accepted and self confident one second, and completely different the next. Children just can't all of a sudden have a healthy and positive self esteem, and as parents, it's extremely important that we always use the tools and resources available as a means to develop and nurture it.
The role that parents have in reinforcing their young children's self esteem can be successful mostly by doing fairly simple things. Things like listening to them and taking them seriously, respecting them, and showing appreciation for them and what they have the potential to do.
Give children actual responsibility. Permit them to be in charge of something--even if it is just making their own bed in the morning. The idea that they are being depended upon, and that they can really contribute to the home, can help to promote a self worth in a healthy direction.
Make certain that your kids realize they're good and they are loved unconditionally. Remember that their worth should not be dependent on performance. Help them see that setbacks can be opportunities, and make sure that it's something that you believe too.
Spend some good, quality time one on one with each of your kids. Be sure that attention given them at that time is undivided, however know that it does not purchase to be something elaborate or even planned. Whether it's tossing a football or reading a book, those moments can help to develop a positive self esteem.
Provide your children with the opportunity to make decisions. By encouraging choice making when they are young, parents can better prepare kids for the difficult choices they will have to make later. Having discussions about choices and their consequences can help children to build a strong self esteem about their capability to make good choices.
There are a number of tools that are available to help you to show your children how great it is to be who they are. There are great self esteem games like Reach For The Stars, with healthy and well thought out activities that will reinforce that message in a fun and inviting way. At http://www.reachforthestarsgame.com, we understand how much you love your kids because we love our own.
Ms. Christine Carter is a writer for http://www.reachforthestarsgame.com who writes and researches about kids and self esteem. Since Mrs. Carter has children herself, she is aware of the importance of their self esteem and feels confident in tools and games such as Reach for the Stars.
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