Children With Low Self-esteem

Do you believe that everyone is born with a certain kind of self-esteem? Do you think loving yourself is important for everyday life? Is it possible to influence the development of self-confidence in childhood? In this article we will try to answer these questions and talk about children with low self-esteem.

Self-esteem is a fundamental piece of everyone’s puzzle. It is on her that we build our whole ego. Therefore, it is important to work on it from an early age. Sensitizing children to the importance of valuing themselves is fundamental, it is the key to building stable foundations, capable of keeping them in the most critical moments, instead of making them stagger.

There are many actions we can take without realizing that instead of strengthening our children’s self-esteem, they gradually weaken it. Some of the most common are as follows:

• Congratulate and reward our children for actions that do not depend on them. For example, being handsome or being tall. This will cause children not to develop their skills or feel proud of their work or what they do. As a result, they will have low self-esteem.
• Do not let our children have responsibilities. This happens when we give them everything without having to make an effort to improve, and when we don’t teach them to be aware of their entire inner world or everything that their decisions involve. Acting in this way, they will not be able to perceive all that they are worth when they do things well, nor will they be able to take charge of their feelings and the consequences derived from their actions.
• Don’t show them affection. Unconditional love makes children stronger. If they feel loved and cared for, they will develop good self-esteem. Thus, they will grow up knowing that their actions can be good or bad, but there will always be someone who loves and protects them.

• Stop them from expressing themselves. When we don’t allow ourselves to express what we have inside of us, we don’t really know ourselves; therefore, we cannot build a good image of ourselves. As a result, a child who is prevented from expressing himself and exalting his opinions and emotions will develop low self-esteem.

As we see, it is essential to consciously educate from respect and love through sincere and clear communication, to help children develop a healthy self-esteem. To do this, it  is essential to understand what self-esteem is. Let’s go deeper.

What is self-esteem?

Self-esteem is the perception we have about ourselves, it is how we value ourselves. A process that starts from infancy and fluctuates through evolutionary development. Therefore, self-esteem is the act of valuing, loving and prioritizing ourselves. It is the self-love we profess.

Children with low self-esteem have not learned to love themselves above their specific actions. They haven’t learned to value themselves, they don’t make the effort if they fail the first time, because they don’t know what the long-term goals are. They won’t learn to love another person because they don’t know how to love themselves.

Children with low self-esteem are adults who will suffer if they don’t solve their problem because they are chained to discomfort, dependence on others and self-depreciation. They are often unprepared for the world because they have not developed an unconditional love for themselves. It’s like they’re invisible to your eyes.

Self-esteem allows us to develop with love and security. It helps us create a good image of ourselves that we will project into all our relationships. It is our greatest treasure; and for that reason, we must take care of it and work on it. We must take the time she deserves and pamper her, because a good construction and development of self-esteem allows us to grow calmly.

Can children with low self-esteem improve?

As we’ve already said, self-esteem starts to be built very early on. The first words we dedicate to children influence their development. Therefore, we must be aware of the importance of the language we use and everything we project onto them. Children take references from outside to build little by little everything they are. The references they will have at the beginning will be those of the adults who accompany them during the first years of life.

Now, is what you learn during childhood immutable? Fortunately no. Ideally, all of us could grow up in an environment with a secure attachment bond; that is, with unconditional love, capacity for exploration and a sense of protection. However, children who are not that lucky and grow up developing low self-esteem  will need a reconstruction of their own image in the future.

Thus, children with low self-esteem will have to face challenges and see that they can fail. They will have to realize that they are important, that they are much more than their actions, that they are not what define them, but their whole set as people. They must discover that self-love takes patience and that they will sometimes make mistakes, but that they can always try again.

As we see, self-esteem makes us who we are and  allows us to develop everything else from a secure base. Therefore, the process of developing true self-confidence is one of the most important processes we can ever do in life.