12 Tips to Build Your Child’s Self Esteem

I attended a new parent seminar.  The presenter was a child psychologist who also had an extensive experience working as a guidance counselor in the public school system. There, I learned that as a parent, raising your children with high self esteem should be one of the top priorities. A kid with a high self esteem is a resilient kid, able to weather the many curve balls life will throw at him or her. Below are twelve useful tips for building your child’s self esteem.

Compliment in a way that builds self esteem

• Clearly and explicitly explaining to your child what the child did right.
• Focus on positively reinforcing and complimenting the process, not the end result.
• Acknowledge the child’s feelings and compliment the motivations behind the child’s behavior.

Misguided ways to compliment that hurt self esteem

• Unilaterally doling out compliments by putting labels on the child (“You are a genius!”).
• Complimenting from the parents perspective and not the child’s (“See how well you did by listening to me!”).
• Complimenting through exaggerations and comparisons with others.

Discipline in a way that builds self esteem

• Disciplining with sympathy and understanding.
• Disciplining by teaching integrity, clearly explaining right and wrong.
• Having patience to let your child make the decisions.

Misguided ways to discipline that hurt self esteem

• Criticism and comparing with others.
• Disciplining through fear.
• Linking the past and present behavior together (“Why are you always whining whenever we eat?”).

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