Hey guys welcome back. We've addressed a
lot of different topics here including self-esteem. Today how to boost a child's
self-esteem. As parents one of the things that we really want to do is help our
children with their own self-esteem. How they feel about themselves. We've
talked about that quite a bit on this channel actually and hopefully you've
found Some of the other videos helpful. There's one in particular that I want
you to pay attention to. We'll link to it right up there when we talked about how
to boost self-esteem, that's going to have a lot of the same content that will
be relevant for our role as a parent but let's take a look at how we can
specifically help our kids with that. In the other video I referenced some
research that was done by one of my mentors and professors Dr. Richard
Bednar who did some groundbreaking research on self-esteem. It was published
in this book self-esteem paradoxes and innovations in clinical theory and
practice. That's a little heady. It's written to psychologists and it's about
all of this research that has been done. Here's the quick summary.
What Dr. Bednar and his colleagues found is that self-esteem is not tied to some
of the traditional things that we would traditionally associate with self-esteem.
Things like accomplishments or compliments that we get from other
people or the approval of other folks. It's not about that. Well Dr. Bednar's
colleagues found was that self-esteem is tied to seeing ourselves take on
challenging things. Doing hard things. Seeing ourselves do that. As opposed to
avoiding it or shying away from it. When we see ourselves running away from a
problem, our self-esteem takes a hit. That's pretty important and the
interesting thing about that, it's not tied to the outcomes. In other words if
I'm taking on a problem and I fail, I'm still taking on the problem
and my self-esteem will increase. Isn't that interesting?
It's not tied to success. It's tied to seeing ourselves face that thing. Now
let's apply that to our children. Sometimes we want to protect them right?
So that they don't get into a problem kind of a situation. Well our kids are
going to experience problems. That's a given.
It's just going to happen. We can help to boost their self-esteem by actually
giving them some challenges, some opportunities to take something on. And
as parents this isn't too hard to come up with because there's already a whole
bunch of stuff that we want our kids to take on that they're not already. Like
chores or homework or some kind of challenge you know that's
age-appropriate for our kids. So step one is to give our children a task or
challenge that they can handle. Now let me talk about that for just a minute
because they're being able to handle it is an important aspect of this. If it's
something that they can't handle then why would we give them that task or
challenge? How can we tell? You know what I like to use the 5k test. The 5k test.
It's where you ask yourself, "hey if I were to offer my kid $5,000 to do what I
just asked him to do, would he do it?" Okay now whatever the $5,000 equivalent is
for your child because if you got a three-year-old they might not care about
money but they really care about stickers or some kind of little tokens
or opportunities okay so translate that in your own mind. What we're trying to do
is take the motivation out of the equation and just look at ability okay?
Can they handle it? Do they have the ability to do this 5k tests? They'll help
you to determine that. So let's say that you want your kid to take on a project
at school or homework or some kind of a chore in the house. Okay those are all
good examples of what we're talking about here. Does your kid want to take on
that challenge? No probably not. They probably want to avoid that
thing but if they avoid the hard things, their self-esteem takes a hit. So we want
to encourage them to face it. Let's put a couple more steps up here that will help
us to do that. Step two - I got from Foster Klein and Jim Fay.
They're the ones who originated the parenting with love and logic approach
and they have written some great books and have some great tools for parents.
And I remember Dr. Fay saying that you should hope at that point that they blow
it. What? blow it don't we want our kids to
succeed? Yes how are they going to succeed? If they learn some stuff right?
What have you learned the most from in your life? Think about it. Your mistakes.
Why? Because they cost you something. There's always a consequence that
enhances your learning. You know what I'm talking about? Don't you? So we want our
kids to have an experience here that allows them to learn something and
remember, we're talking about self-esteem today. Self-esteem is boosted and
enhanced by seeing yourself take something on regardless of the outcomes.
We want our kids to see themselves facing the problems, the challenges that
they have now. Do we want them to succeed? Yeah ultimately we do. What's going to
enhance their success? If they get to have a significant learning opportunity
by making a few mistakes or blowing it along the way. So that's why step two is
there, okay? Totally makes sense. Now step three - we're going to let
consequences do the teaching. Let the consequences do the teaching. We're not
going to bail them out. Remember part of self esteem is all about seeing yourself
handle hard things. Take on challenges, not run away from anything and that
includes not being rescued from the consequences of our own choices. You know
you and I both know as parents. We got these soft hearts. You know we don't want
our little kids to experience any kind of consequences so we try to swoop in
and and rescue them. Kind of a hard thing on self-esteem. Honestly from the
research this is what we're learning, we need to allow our children to experience
that and to see themselves facing that hard thing including the consequences.So
look at that we've got two opportunities already in this process to face
something hard. Okay little disclaimer. How hard is it really?
It's not that hard. Is it? Now for them it's a big deal. You know because they're
little and it's kind of a big deal to pick up my toys. That's hard. Yeah, right.
How hard? It's not that hard and what are the consequences? Well you're going to build
in some consequences that aren't necessarily going to devastate them
right? Because you're a genuine, loving parent. Yeah I'm going to do that but you
will select some appropriate consequences and look through by the way,
look through the positive parenting playlist here on the channel. We've got a
lot of videos in there about different aspects of parenting and you're going to
get a lot of different ideas from those. So all of those resources are there for
you to come up with the appropriate consequences. Let them happen so that
your child has another opportunity to do the hard thing. We're going to build in one
more. Okay step four - we will give the same task again. This is so powerful
because the message we're sending here is you know what, I trust you. You are
smart enough, you are brilliant enough, you are bright enough to learn from all
of your experiences and you're really good at facing and doing
the hard things. Now we're not going to say all this. I guess you can if you want to
but what we're communicating to our child is, "hey you've got this. You've got
what it takes." Let me share with you three messages that we can add to the
four steps that I've shared with you. Here three messages as a parent. Number
one and do I really need to remind you? What is your job as a parent? It's to love
them no matter what and even if no matter what and even if that's your job
as a parent, it's not to make sure that anything. You don't have that kind of
control. It's to love them no matter what and even if. So message number one - "I love
you no matter what and even if." Can you be loud and you be consistent about that
message? Message number two - "If you have any questions, ask." And then I want you to
smile just a little, okay? Because when Mom smiling kids are thinking. It's a pretty
good rule of thumb. You're going to convey to them the confidence that they
can think this through, that they can learn from their mistakes, that they've
got every resource available to them to solve this challenge and take this thing
on including you. If you have any questions, ask. I'm here. I'm a loving,
benevolent, generous, wise parent and if you want to ask me something. I'm here,
ask me. That's message number two. Message number three - "good luck." You can say that
with a little smile too. Because you know it's going to be hard. Keep
it in perspective though. How hard the problems that your kids are facing right
now? Are teeny. Compared to the ones that are coming. If we can help them right now
to gain the confidence and the self-esteem that's required to continue
taking on these hard things and facing our problems, how does that equip them
for the future? If you see where we're going with that?
That's so powerful. Can you boost your child's self-esteem? Well we can
certainly provide for them. All of the opportunities and the resources to do
exactly what's necessary to pull that off. Our parenting community here at Live
on Purpose TV is growing and it's strong. Thank you for being a part of it.
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