Are you contributing to your child’s low self-esteem?

By James Gitau

In the last two Sundays, I have dedicated my writing to low self-esteem in adults and how to deal with it. Failing to work on low self-esteem will adversely affect almost all spheres of your life.

This week, I will focus on some causes of low self-esteem in children. Self-esteem can be defined as what we think and feel about ourselves. It is our self-evaluation and our sense of self-worth.

The overall feelings of self-worth are often referred to as global self-esteem. This includes an individual’s talents, capabilities, accomplishments and personality. It may include academic self-esteem, social self-esteem, physical self-esteem, and others.

Children with low self-esteem usually appear to be hesitant to take risks or move out of their comfort zone

Causes of low self-esteem

There are many causes of low self-esteem in children. To have a proper perspective, we need to appreciate that when a child comes into the world, he or she is full of confidence and appears to have no fear.

However, the people helping a child navigate the world are usually a terrified lot, worrying about things such as what harm could befall the child. Over time, the fear and self-doubt of the caregivers is transferred to the child, resulting in a similar attitude and behaviour.

A simple example: The child tries to lift a glass from the table and the caregiver shrieks in horror, “Stop before you break it!”

If the child breaks the glass, then the shrieking is even louder, creating a huge dent in the child’s confidence.

Key mentors

Who are your child’s key mentors and what impact do they have?

1. House-helps

For most career parents, the key mentor of their child is the house-help. You might not like to hear this, but your house-help might mean more to your child, and probably have more influence on your child’s earliest and most critical development, than you.

Unfortunately, many house-helps are victims of low self-esteem and have very limited, if any, formal training in early childhood development.

Your house-help handles most of the feeding, changing, washing and protecting of your child all day long. To your child, your house-help is ‘God’ and a close confidant until a certain age.

In some cases, the child would rather be with the house-help than the parents.

Your child’s level of self-esteem can be, at its very best, equal to that of their greatest role model — your house-help.

2. Parents

You, too, have a major impact on your child’s self-esteem. You need to evaluate yourself and see where you rank on this very important issue. Some of the indicators can be found in the article from two Sundays ago.

Remember that over 80 per cent of the world’s population suffer low self-esteem and chances are that they are unknowingly and unintentionally downloading the same on their children. It spares nobody; mighty or lowly.

Parents who judge others, engage in blame games and complain a lot about everything are showing signs of low self-esteem, and tend to have a major negative impact on their children’s self-perception.

Other ways that a parent can contribute to a child’s low esteem include the following:

•             Criticising your child harshly about his or her behaviour, looks and ability.

•             Failing to appreciate the child’s emotional needs.

•             Expecting your child to be perfect in all areas — school, extra-curricular and home.

3. Teachers

With utmost respect to these most honourable members of society, many teachers suffer low-self esteem just like many other people.

Teachers have a major influence on your child and if they project their low self-esteem, it will rub off on the children they teach and mentor. This is usually done through criticism and comparison.

In the course of my work with children, I have seen a number who have been destroyed by teachers.

4. Media

Children who watch television a lot tend to compare themselves to what they see on the screen. The media normally projects a glamorous world, which seems ideal to the young minds.

As a result, the children feel like they do not look good enough, or are not good enough, or do not have enough. This can lower their self-worth.

5. Friends and siblings

Children tend to model themselves a lot on their friends and peers, especially the older ones. If other children appear better, a child may develop a sense of inadequacy, and, thus, a low self-esteem.