building blocks: I think I can, I think I can. . .
Filed Under Tips & Tricks | January 28, 2009
In her fifth and final article on the building blocks of self esteem, Sharon Selby, a local child counsellor and the creator of the Phonics Wizard, wraps up her series with competence:
Our culture places a lot of emphasis on success. We all need to feel successful and earn approval from our peers. While we all have strengths and weaknesses, children with a healthy self-esteem tend to focus on their strong points. As children accumulate positive experiences, they internalize a competent self-image and feel more confident taking risks. Success reinforces their positive beliefs about themselves and they grow up believing “I can do it!”
Children with low self-esteem experience the opposite. They focus on their weaknesses and failures and give up easily, believing that it’s not worth trying again because they don’t want to fail. They internalize this negative self-image and believe that their lack of success is directly related to them being inadequate. They tell themselves “I am no good, I can’t do anything!”
All children deserve to experience success. You, as a parent, can help influence your child’s successes, recognize their strengths and give them the opportunities they need to develop their areas of competence:
- Focus on Strengths: Write a list of your child’s strengths, such as music, art, drama, sports, academics, creativity, love of animals etc. Choose a few to target and commit to providing the time and resources your child needs to build on these talents.
- Specifically Praise Strengths: Each time you see your child displaying their strengths, use specific words to describe and praise the moment such as “I noticed you’re artistic by all the great details in your painting.” Praise should be genuine and valid.
- Bedtime Strength Talks: At bedtime, name a different strength for each of your child’s fingers.
- Celebrate Strengths: As a family, celebrate each other’s accomplishments with special dinners or outings. Celebrate each member of the family, not just the “A” student.
- Record Improvement: Create a folder to keep work or art that your child is proud of and over time, note their improvements. Create a special place for displaying art, poems etc. Videotapes of a developing skill over a period of time are powerful evidence, even to children with low self-esteem, that they have made progress.
- Find Different Strengths for Siblings: Children with high self-esteem can handle competition and find it motivating, but to children with low self-esteem, it’s paralyzing.
Sharon Selby, B.Ed., M.A., is a local child counsellor. She is the author of The Phonics Wizard Reading Series: a fun learn-to-read program for parents to teach their own children early literacy skills for ages 2-7. Click here for all the building blocks of self esteem.
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Great tips!!! Yet many people think they should work on their weaknesses to improve them when they should focus on the positive!