Cincinnati Psychoanalytic Institute

“Look what I can do!”:   Building self esteem and self confidence in children

Your 10-year-old son proudly hands you his book report.  As you read it over, you realize that he has misunderstood the book and that there are significant mistakes.  You want him to feel good about himself, and you know that he will react negatively to honest critical feedback.

Your three-year-old daughter is misbehaving, and you are angry. You’ve asked her to stop and tried verbal redirection as well as positive reinforcement for better behavior, but nothing is working. You try not to use punishments, as you’ve heard that punishment can be damaging to children’s self esteem.

These are two examples of situations that have to do with your efforts to promote a healthy self-concept in your child. In this series, we will explore ideas for fostering a positive and stable sense of self in your child.

We should probably start by defining some terms. It is useful to distinguish between self esteem or self worth on the one hand and self confidence on the other. Self esteem or self worth refer to a sense of being worthwhile and lovable, while self confidence refers to a sense of being capable and effective. Both self esteem and self confidence have conscious and unconscious aspects.  A child who boasts a lot may be responding to an underlying sense of poor self worth. Conversely, a child who says, “I’ll never have any friends—no one likes me,” may have an unconscious overinflated or unrealistic sense of his self worth. Similarly, the child who says, “I can’t do arithmetic,” may have an unconscious worry that he will lose out on getting the kind of help and attention he desires if his parents think that he is capable of working more autonomously. So, judging your child’s self worth and self confidence can be a complicated matter. 

What are the components that contribute to self worth or self confidence? The first, which may seem obvious, is a sense of self. In order to feel, “I am loved,” or “I am competent,” a child has to have an independent sense of “I.”  The sense of “I,” which usually develops within the first two years of life, entails the child’s awareness that she takes independent action and makes the choice to do so, and that she has her own internal thoughts and feeling states. It is easy to take this for granted, but the development of a sense of self is a significant developmental achievement. Until the child has this level of self awareness, she cannot have a sense of her value or worth or capabilities.

Parents assist their children with the development of this self-awareness quite naturally.  Whenever you ask your child a question like, “How are you feeling?” or “What do you think about such and such?” you are letting her know that she has her own mind separate from yours.  Whenever you comment on something that she has done, you help her to strengthen her sense of herself as an independent actor.

Now to another idea about self esteem and self confidence -- What is “healthy” self esteem or self worth?  Is this the same as a “positive” self concept?   A healthy self concept has three components: it is more positive than negative, it is realistic, and it is stable over time. In Part 2 of this series, we’ll talk about these ideas and about ways to help your child develop a healthy, stable self concept.