MyShiningChild

Your Self-Esteem Determines Your Life

Self esteem is perhaps the most important part of your life and plays the role in determining your performance and behavior.

It is the critical determinant of a healthy personality. The best definition of self-esteem is, “how much you like yourself.” When you like and respect yourself, you always perform and behave better than if you did not.

The more you like yourself, the more confidence you have. The more you like yourself, the more efficient and effective you are in each area of your life. Self-esteem is the key to peak performance.

Self-esteem, the feeling of liking and respecting yourself, is the foundation principle of success and happiness. It is vital for you to feel fully alive.

People with high self-esteem are also people who are motivated to take care of themselves and to persistently strive towards the fulfillment of personal goals and aspirations. People with lower self-esteem don't tend to regard themselves as worthy of happy outcomes or capable of achieving them and so tend to let important things slide and to be less persistent and resilient in terms of overcoming adversity. They may have the same kinds of goals as people with higher self-esteem, but they are generally less motivated to pursue them to their conclusion.
When children believe they are valuable and important, they take good care of themselves. They make good decisions about themselves which enhance their value rather than break it down.

Summarizing the importance of Self Esteem, here are 12 reasons:

1. You believe you are worthy of happiness, you feel worthy of respect.
2. Is the first step in believing in you, it builds self-confidence. If you do not respect yourself do you think that others will?.
3. Your self esteem has a profound effect on your thinking, emotions, happiness, desires, values, and goals.
4. You can still feel respect and be proud even if you make a mistake.
5. You never compare with others and your self-confidence is strong.
6. You have a sense of control and direction and approach problems with a different perspective. Allows you to make correct choices and take action and be proud.
7. Allows to act independently and to assume responsibility for your actions, goals and desires.
8. You can take new challenges easily and handle criticism.
9. You consider yourself a valuable person and you live for a reason.
10. Gives the clarity to recognize your qualities. Strong faith in yourself and know that you are lovable and capable.
11. It is an integral part of personal happiness, fulfilling relationships and achievement of your desires.
12. Allow you to be in control of your life and able to do what you want. Is the source of your mental health.

A word for the parents

Parents, more than anyone else can promote their child’s self-esteem. It isn’t a particularly difficult thing to do. If fact, most parents do it without even realizing that their words and actions have great impact on how their child or teenager feels about himself. Here are some suggestions to keep in mind.

When you feel good about your child, mention it to him or her. Parents are often quick to express negative feelings to children but somehow don’t get around to describing positive feelings. A child doesn’t know when you are feeling good about him or her and he or she needs to hear you tell him or her that you like having him or her in the family. Children remember positive statements we say to them. They store them up and “replay” these statements to themselves. Practice giving your child “words of encouragement” throughout each day.

Be generous with praise. Use what is called descriptive praise to let your child know when they are 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. When your child completes a task or chore you could say, “I really like the way you straightened your room. You found a place for every thing and put each thing in its place.” When you observe them showing a talent you might say, “That last piece you played was great. You really have a lot of musical talent.” Don’t be afraid to give praise often even in front of family or friends. Also, use praise to point out positive character traits. 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 he 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. Self-talk is very important in everything we do. Avoid criticism that takes the form of ridicule or shame. Sometimes it is necessary to criticize a child’s actions, and it is appropriate that parents do so. When, however the criticism is directed to the child as a person it can easily deteriorate into ridicule or shame. It is important to learn to use “I statements” rather than “You statements” when giving criticism. For instance say, “I would like you to keep your clothes in the proper place in your closet or drawers not lying all over your room;” rather than saying “Why are you such a lazy slob? Can’t you take care of anything?”

Psychologists have found that negative self-talk is behind depression and anxiety. What we think determines how we feel and how we feel determines how we behave. 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.”

Teach your child about decision-making and to recognize when he/she has made a good decision. Children make decisions all the time but often are not aware that they are doing so. There are a number of ways parents can help children improve their ability to consciously make wise decisions.
1. Help the child clarify the problem that is creating the need for a decision. Ask him questions that pinpoint how he sees, hears, and feels about a situation and what may need to be changed.
2. Brainstorm the possible solutions. Usually there is more than one solution or choice to a given dilemma, and the parent can make an important contribution by pointing out this fact and by suggesting alternatives if the child has none.
3. Allow the child to choose one of the solutions only after fully considering the consequences. The best solution will be one that solves the problem and simultaneously makes the child feel good about himself or herself.
4. Later join the child in evaluating the results of that particular solution. Did it work out well? Or did it fail? if so, why? Reviewing the tactics will equip the child to make a better decision the next time around.

Develop a positive approach to providing structure for your child. All kids and teens need to accept responsibility for their behavior. They should learn self-discipline. To help children learn self-discipline, the parent needs to adopt the role of coach/teacher rather than that of disciplinarian and punisher.
This feature has been compiled and contributed by Sinjan Saha. The information in the article has been collected from numerous sources across the world and the objective is to help parents foster self esteem in their children.
Sinjan Saha is a life coach at Aspire Educational Services, Indirapuram and specializes in life coaching for school children.
Aspire Educational Services conducts LifeSmart course in the following variants:
1. LifeSmart – Little Champs (Class 1 – 3)
2. LifeSmart – Bright Stars (Class 4 – 6)
3. LifeSmart – Budding Minds (Class 7 – 9)
4. LifeSmart – Young Dynamos (Class 10 - 12)
5. LifeSmart – Progressive Learners (Students who have attended the Young Dynamos in 2015-16)

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Dear parents,

Life skills are something of a thrill. It is also the focus of discussion across a range of businesses around the world. Life skills have been defined by the World Health Organization as “abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life”

We face a life skills crisis. This crisis can be conceptualized as a dreadful imbalance between supply and demand. Much is being made these days of the need to boost academic success. In reality, the need to enhance academic attainment runs a distant second to the need to boost life skills. For the happiness and success of our students and the productiveness and success of our society, we need to acknowledge and address the life skills emergency.

To cope with the growing pace and change of modern life, students need new life skills such as the ability to deal with pressure and frustration. Kindness and compassion will be in demand. As mobility intensifies, society will be more and more varied, so tolerance and diversity skills also will be at a premium.

We all know that the world is changing fast. What we think we can take for granted one moment has completely changed the next. None of us can predict with confidence what any given aspect of life or work will look like in five or ten years’ time, when our children will be part of the workforce. How can we possibly prepare them for the invariable challenges that lie ahead?

We need to equip our students with the kind of skills that will enable them to meet those challenges. These are skills that you, as a successful, effective professional, probably use every day without too much thought. And you use them in many different aspects of your life.

And it’s those life skills that we need to pass on to our children.