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.
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