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How to Build Girls Self Esteem

How To Build Girls Self Esteem

By April Butler

Introduction

Building self-esteem is an ongoing part of parenting. It begins at birth and continues through childhood and into the teen years. A child with a healthy self-esteem will have confidence in herself and her abilities. Self-esteem can serve as a protective armor that will help a child grow and get through the turbulent adolescent years to become a successful, confident adult.

Fostering a healthy self-esteem in a child can be done by practicing attachment parenting, supporting childhood accomplishments and giving a child a strong foundation of unconditional love.

Attachment parenting is an important way to begin to raise connected children that have a healthy self-esteem. Parents who respond to babies cries and hold a baby frequently are fostering self-esteem in the child. How a parent interacts with a baby also helps lay the foundation for a healthy self-esteem.

In order to develop a healthy self-esteem, a child needs to learn how to do things on her own. Parents can help her accomplish difficult tasks, set challenging, yet realistic, goals and offer encouragement to meet those goals. As she grows, parents should step back to let her solve problems and complete tasks on her own. She will have many chances to learn how to be independent and competent as he grows.

Parents should allow as much freedom as possible and only step in when she is getting overly frustrated. A healthy self-esteem will flourish as she develops her own special gifts. To build confidence and self-esteem, a school-aged child can be given chores and allowed to participate in the age-appropriate activities that spark her interest.

Chores allow her to contribute to the home and family in a positive way. Activities that are challenging, but doable, give her a sense of pride and a chance to set achievable goals.

How to Measure Your Child's Self Esteem

A child with high self esteem will be able to act independently, assume responsibility, take pride in her accomplishments, tolerate frustration, attempt new tasks and challenges, handle positive and negative emotions, and offer assistance to others.

On the other hand, a child with low self-esteem will avoid trying new things, feels unloved and unwanted, blames others for her own shortcomings, feels or pretends to feel emotionally indifferent, is unable to tolerate a normal level of frustration, puts down her own talents and abilities, and is easily influenced.

The self-esteem of peer-oriented children will always be dependent on the way others perceive them. A positive self-esteem means that children and teens consider themselves to be valuable even when they are being judged by others.

How to Build Your Child's Self Esteem

Tell your child that she is important to you, that you love her. Communicate your feelings to her so she doesn't have to guess. Listen non-judgmentally. Do special things for your child.

A child doesn't know when you are feeling good about her and she needs to hear you tell her that you like having her in the family. Children remember positive statements we say to them. They store them up and "replay" these statements to themselves. Practice giving her words of encouragement throughout each day. Use what is called descriptive praise to let her know when she is doing something well.

You must of course become in the habit of looking for situations in which your child is doing a good job or displaying a talent. For instance, "You are a very kind person " Or, "I like the way you stick with things you do even when it seems hard to do " You can even praise a child for something she did not do such as "I really liked how you accepted my answer of 'no' and didn't lose your temper ".

Teach your child to practice making positive self-statements. Psychologists have found that negative self-talk is behind depression and anxiety. Therefore, it is important to teach children to be positive about how they talk to themselves.

Some examples of useful self-talk are: "I can get this problem, if I just keep trying", "It's OK if our team lost today. We all tried our best and you can't win them all", "It makes me feel good to help others even if the person doesn't notice or thank me".

Your child can become an expert at this and it will serve as protective amour during the turbulent teen years.

April is a freelance research columnist, a recovering shy child, and a passionate child advocate. She believes every child should have a voice, and at times is willing to be that voice. You can learn more about April’s work at https://www.MyShyChild.com.