If you want to raise children with high self-esteem, you will notice that doing so is very much about raising your own self-esteem. Your children will learn your habits, whether these are habits that are supportive of a high self-esteem or habits that pull their self-esteems down. They will notice how you think and how you feel about yourself and they will adopt the same way of thinking about themselves. Furthermore, they will also notice how you think and feel aboutthemandtheirvalue and potential, so if you want them to love themselves you obviously have to show them that love in the first place.
Develop your own self-esteem, and display it to your children. One important part of doing this is to set and respect your personal boundaries. If your children or somebody else treat you in a way that you consider unacceptable or hurting you have to be firm and tell the person that you don't accept that kind of treatment. If they tell you an inappropriate comment, tell him/her that "That comment hurt me. I don't accept that kind treatment." Before you can do this you of course have to decide what your personal boundaries are. This might take some self-exploration. When you communicate your own personal boundaries and refuse to accept mistreatment you set a good example for your children to do the same for themselves. Having strong personal boundaries shows that you consider yourself valuable enough to not be walked over by others.
Talk about yourself in a positive way. Show your children that you love yourself and that it is ok to love yourself. Society will try to make your children believe that it is arrogant or selfish to speak positively about oneself. Do your best to counter that effect so that your children learn that loving yourself is something positive.
As you start to work on raising your own self-esteem in order to be a good role model for your children you will probably start to adopt a habit of doing lots of self-esteem exercises. Don't lock yourself into a secret room while you're doing these. Show your children openly that you are working on your self-esteem on a daily basis. In this way they will understand what self-esteem is and that it can be trained. If they are old enough they might even adopt some of your self-esteem habits for themselves.
It is also possible to involve your children in self-esteem exercises before they get old enough to understand what self-esteem is. Every night before putting them to bed you can ask them what good things they did during the day. Encourage them to say things that point at their wonderful personalities, such as "I was helpful when I helped my sister" or "I was happy". Let them listen to songs with lyrics that tell them that they are wonderful unique persons. Play self-esteem games. Involve them in as many self-esteem exercises as possible.
To raise your children's self-esteem you should also show them that you believe in their potential to accomplish anything they want. As their parent you probably already believe that they are magical wonderful children. Show them that you think so, both with your body language and with your words. Tell them how much you believe in them - often! Brainwash them with positive thoughts about themselves.
Last but not least, love your children. Self-esteem is essentially love towards oneself. If your children learn from an early stage that they are worthy of being loved, it will be so much easier for them to love themselves later on in their lives. Loving them is like giving them the gift of self-esteem in the purest form.
If you want more ideas of how to raise your own and others self-esteem, visit
Liv Miyagawa – The Self-Esteem Coach
