Don't destroy it

" A child needs encouragement like a plant needs water"

Rudoff Dreikurs

Self esteem is regarding oneself as a worthwhile person. It is a positive evaluation of one's personality, abilities and capabilities that makes one feel important and dignified as a human being.

A lot has been written as to how to develop a heathy and high positive self esteem in children.

But in this article , I will like to mention some parenting attitudes that contribute to low self esteem in children.

1. Belittling a child: You belittle a child when you make statements that attack who he is - his personality. This is done when you utter foul or abusive words that particularly ridicule or mock a child's part of the body.

For examples: "Look at your head like coconut"

"Don't you have a brain? You are so dumb." etc

This negative attitude demeans the child and dents his self esteem a great deal.

Rather than issuing a belittling word, you need to gain control over yourself and reconstruct your words positively.

2. Issuing threatening words: Threats refer to the possible consequences of a child's future actions.

Threatening words make children feel uneasy about themselves. Such words are useless in shaping a child's behaviour positively in the long run.

As a way of responding to threatening words, children develop the feelings of fear, hatred and resentments for the giver of such words.

There are better ways of getting a child to behave properly rather than issuing threatening words.

A child's excesses could be curbed with an enforcement of rules and consequeences. He does not need to be threatened before he complies.

3. Bribing a child: This is when a parent or care giver gives a child a particular gift or render a particular service to stop a child from misbehaving in the moment.

It is also when a child behaves in a certain for the sake of a reward which he would not have gotten had he not behaved that way.

This act removes the child's willingness to perform or behave well from being internally driven to being externally motivated.

When a parent and child engage in bribe offering and acceptance, the concept of manipulation may be instilled in the child.

The child tends to influence others through the weapon of manipulation. A child that manipulates others cannot have a healthy self esteem - somehow, he will see himself as a crook.

4. Extracting promises from a child: Inducing children to make promises of a better future conducts make them feel guilty unnecessarily for actions they don't really have control over.

Children don't have full understanding of what it means or take to keep a promise.

When an adult induces a child to keep a promise, he does so just to satisfy the adult. He will forget the promise and breaks it unintentionally - just out of being a child.

Extracting promises from children when they don't have the capacity to keep it makes them feel guilty or cynical whenever they break the promise. This effect has a way of undermining their self esteem.

5. Comparing kids: Every child has his or her own unique qualities, strengths, weaknesses, abilities, potentials and timing that make him/her different from others.

What they need is sufficient support, encouragement and guidance to cause them to bloom and flourish abundantly in their own particular areas of strengths.

When you compare a child to another, you devalue him and make him lose his sense of self worthiness and dignity.

It is not enough to know what it takes to build up a child's self esteem. You also need to know what actions to avoid so you don't destroy what you build.