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Self-Esteem is a word often used in connection with good mental health, but rarely is it explained how we get poor self-esteem and how we cultivate good self-esteem. Good self-esteem means to hold oneself in high esteem, feeling worthy of a good life and good treatment by others. Good self-esteem helps protect children from the traps they are exposed to growing up in our modern society.

How to Build Self-Esteem

• Accept your child as a separate human being with emotions that are important. Allow them to have their own feelings and express them. Listen to their feelings as much as what they say and paraphrase it back to them. Being an empathetic parent develops an empathetic child who will then grow into being an empathetic adult that is sensitive to others and is capable of good relationships.
• Praise your child for what they do well. Sometimes parents refrain from praise because they fear their child will get a big ego. That is not the case, children are anxious to learn what to do right and by your praise you give them guidance and approval. Respond to their successes with small celebrations and comfort and encourage them when they fail.
• Tell your children you love them just the way they are and hug them often. Remember children hear your tone of voice more than your words, so speak to them with respect and loving kindness.
• Children learn from the examples in their life, telling them what to do is not nearly as effective as being a good example and a positive role model. Children learn respect by observation, show them and others respect and they will follow your example.
• Start your child learning developmentally appropriate decision making skills, start with letting them pick between a few choices of which toy they will take in the car with them, and then as they get older choices about what to wear, on a cold day allow them to pick between two warm outfits and as they get older widen the choices so that they will be able to pick out their own outfits. As they mature more complex decisions will lead to more in depth decision making conversations that include the possible choices and the consequences, costs, advantages and disadvantages of each choice. In the process allow them to make mistakes that are harmless so that they can learn from mistakes also.
• When disciplining them differentiate the behavior from the child. Do not label the child with name calling, but you might say, “I didn’t like it when you ______” rather than “You are really stupid.”
• Talk with them about their day, listen and ask questions with interest. Have them read to you and show you their school work.
• Get your children involved in healthy activities like sports, music and dance. Attend their activities.
• Don’t lean on your children emotionally and have them take care of you. Allow them to lean on you for support.
• Let them know what is expected of them in social situations but don’t make them act like little adults in every situation.

Self Respect

Self esteem results from self respect and respect from others. Self respect includes competence, confidence, mastery, achievement, independence and freedom. Respect from others includes recognition, acceptance, status, and appreciation. Healthy self-esteem is a realistic appraisal of one’s capacities and begins with deserved respect from others.

When these needs are not met, a child grows up feeling discouraged, weak and inferior. He or she is then vulnerable to finding other ways of being accepted outside of the family and is then susceptible to looking for acceptance from other groups like gangs and is vulnerable to peer pressure and acquiring feelings of acceptance through sex, drugs and alcohol.

Positive self-esteem means having confidence, a child knows who they are in the world and does not have to fit in to be accepted. Encourage them toward college and career. When children feel confident and capable growing up and hold a vision of a satisfying future they are less likely to get into trouble that could prevent them from reaching their goals in life.

The personality of a person can be defined as a set of qualities, beliefs, feelings, thoughts, attitudes, emotions and ideas that distinguish him from others. Since very many years social scientists have been trying to find the reasons why people behave the way they do and how the personalities shape up. There is a wide spread belief that if the factors responsible for shaping up a person’s personality are controlled, right in the childhood itself, a person can have a desired, well rounded personality. The following Buzzle article discusses some beliefs similar to these by looking at how personality development in children takes place.

Social and Personality Development in Children

There are some theories which say that the personality of an individual is directly linked to genes. However, then why do siblings develop a completely different personality? No one has yet found an answer to this question. Then there is another theory which says that it is the environment to which a child is subjected that makes up his personality. A child’s parents, teachers, friends, acquaintances, his home environment, his school environment – all these have a great influence in shaping his personality. Lastly, the kind of experiences a person has, as a child, teen or a young adult, play a major role in determining his reactions, his feelings, his emotional make-up and the way he behaves.

Parental Influence…
Out of all the factors responsible for personality development in children, parental influence is the most important one. The way the parents behave with the child, how much he is allowed to socialize, the kind of culture he is subjected to by them, and the emotional make-up of his parents, all these have a great bearing on the child’s mental growth. In early childhood, all children ape their parent’s mannerisms. Children learn a lot about socialization from the way their parents interact with their friends, neighbors, acquaintances, etc. If the parents are social, the same traits will most probably be imbibed in the children. Thus, parents should take care to become good role models and provide the child with the best environment, where he gets ample opportunities to develop his personality.

Home Environment…
The first time a child begins to understand his emotions, is through his mother. A child learns about love, care, support and help, through her. Thereafter, he develops various kinds of emotions, both positive as well as negative. Happiness, fear, anxiety, jealousy, anger and shyness – a child starts displaying all these. Again, it is up to the parents to make sure that the child incorporates the positive emotions in his personality and stays away from the negative ones. A child needs both his parents, mother as well as father to develop his personality. An absentee father or someone who stays away from home for a long time, can have a negative influence on the child. To ensure that a child turns out to be a confident, positive person, there are some other things that parents should avoid, such as being too authoritative, trying to discipline the child in excess, scolding the child often, punishing him severely, criticizing the child, discouraging him, comparing him with others and giving preference to one child over the other one.

School Environment…
Besides the home environment, a child’s school environment too plays a major role in shaping a child’s personality. Once a child starts going to school, he learns how to interact and deal with his peers. He comes to know how to engage in “playing” according to the rules and regulations. He gets educated, learns how to read, write and communicate effectively. A child’s personality is greatly influenced by the way he is treated at school, both by his teachers as well as his peers.

Culture…
Influence of culture in personality and social development cannot be ignored too. For instance, a child brought up in western countries is taught to be individualistic and competitive, while children brought up in Asian, African and South American countries are taught to be cooperative.

According to psychiatrist Erik Erikson, there are various phases that a child passes through such as infancy, toddlerhood, preschool and school age. Each of these stages has it’s own share of problems and challenges, which a child has to overcome, with his parent’s assistance, to turn out to be a well developed personality.