You Can’t Give Your Children Self-Esteem

Many parents say, “I want to give my children self-esteem.” However, you can’t “give” self-esteem to any one. Self-esteem is personally developed from within. Even that is not entirely true. Have you ever noticed how fleeting is self-esteem? One minute you feel really great about yourself. Then someone criticizes you or you make a mistake and criticize yourself. Suddenly your self-esteem is in the pits.

What children (and adults) really need is the ability to handle the ups and downs of life. They need to know how to “recover” their self-esteem when it gets trampled. So, it is more accurate to help children develop self-esteem and resiliency, than to try to “give” it to them.