To help our children to build a healthy self-esteem, we first have to understand what it is.
In society, we hear a lot of time that someone has low or high self-esteem, well, that is not a good start, because it is not possible that self-esteem is high or low, it only can be positive or negative.
For example, when I estimate the distance from one place to another, I am recognizing that distance, it has nothing to do with feelings, it's just recognized.
Then, there are three concepts that we must separate, one is self-knowledge, I know who I am, my qualities, my defects, abilities, skills, etc...
Then we have the self-esteem is how I recognize myself, if those characteristics are positive or negative for my way of seeing.
And then comes the self-appreciation that is the healthy way I love and take care of myself.
When you have time, you can do an exercise with your children. They should draw three columns, one should have the title positive, another one negative and the last column is neutral. Then tell them to write all their characteristics in the column that corresponds. A characteristic can be positive or negative depending on each person, with this exercise you can see how the child recognizes himself.
This exercise is for kids 7 years and up. If the child puts more characteristics in the negative column, we can see that there is a problem of self-esteem, and we must help him to recognize the positive side of those characteristics.
Never put labels on your children, because if you tell them that they are messy, mean, rude, etc... Children are very literal and they will act out and reinforce that attitude, because that is what you expect of them. So change the negative words for positive ones, like "try to be more respectful", "I know you can be more organized", "next time I know that you can be more kind"....
Do not tell them for example: "You are a bad child", or "you are very rude", you can say instead, "you are taking a bad decision", "what you did is wrong", when you say these things try to do it with respect and kindness.
Always encode positive words in your children's brains, "you are doing well", "I see that you are trying hard", "I appreciate your dedication", etc...
Because every word you say to your child will be engraved in his mind, and he believes everything you tell him.
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