Ever heard of the Sunday School song, “Don’t Build Your House On The Sandy Land”? It talks all about building a house on a solid rock foundation rather than too close to the sandy shore. Over-promoting self-esteem could be encouraging a child to build their personal self on a sandy shore. Instead, I offer “solid rock” suggestion - self-worth.
What’s self-worth based on? Actions and purpose in the world that make a difference. These don’t even have to be big, glorious actions to make a difference. Just bringing a smile to someone can be purposeful and make you feel good. You attribute your good feelings to your ability to make a difference for that person, which adds to your self-worth.
People of all abilities, ages, and backgrounds can do things to build their self-worth. And I don’t mean to suggest overpraising kids for each and every thing they do. See a previous post about that. I’m talking about genuine feedback from themselves or others to know that they have good purpose to their lives and in the world.
Find someone who feels like they have no real purpose and see how high their self-esteem is. Pretty low because they have little to reflect back on and see that they made an impact. Telling that person to cheer up and telling them to feel better about themselves will do little good. They need to take some form of action, however small, to begin building their self-worth.
Then, when the emotional storms come through their life, they can still reflect on times when they had good purpose and persistence. They made a difference before and they can do it again. They know it takes action and involvement in their life, not just reflecting on feelings or empty positive affirmations. It’s the difference between eating a banana smoothie or a banana split. Both taste sweet, but the banana smoothie will give your body much more nutrition than the banana split.
So rather than just focusing on self-esteem, help your child develop a strong sense of self-worth. Give them tasks that press them to be generous with their time and energy. Teach about doing chores as ways to make life good for everyone in the family. Involve the kids in finding things in your home to donate to charity - teach them how letting go of old clothes or toys will make another family’s life brighter. Give your kids a chance at higher levels of responsibility, such as mentoring in sports, school or church groups. Steer your kids towards activities and groups that seem to have a clear sense of purpose and teamwork.
When you talk with your kids about how they feel about themselves, their answer can change from minute to minute. But ask them about things that make them feel worthwhile and useful, and you might get a whole different answer. That’s how you know whether their personal self is built on a sandy shore or a rock foundation.
Related Posts
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Mirror Activities For Self-Esteem (July 8, 2009)
Please, we need help.
My Daughters husbands daughter has three children (ages, 6, 4.5 & 1). She is not a good mother. She takes drugs, feeds the children fast foods, is unclean, lazy and has sought ADS meds for her oldest son who is only 6 years old. He is a wonderful young man, report card of all’A’s. He gets no attention except of the negative type. The mother has requested these meds as she is lazy and gives no guideance. She doesn’t want to be bothered with these beautiful young children.
What can be done about this?
I’m so sad!
Well if she takes drugs, that can be reported to the police. Many different things could happen from there. If there isn’t anything she is doing that’s legally wrong, you might just try to spend as much time with the kids as you can and allow them to have your influence as much as possible, building them up in positive ways.
Is the husband a good dad? Does your daughter or anyone in that family have any positive influence there? It is a sad situation, and sometimes it feels like you can’t do a lot. You know much more about the situation than I do, so it’s hard for me to give you specifics.
If you truly suspect the kids are in harms way (no parental supervision at times, physical abuse, drug activities going on, neglect of food and sanitation needs, etc), you may be able to report something to the police. However, just being a lazy parent isn’t illegal, even though it isn’t good.
In my state, you can report suspicion of child endangerment and you don’t have to give your own name, just enough specifics about the situation for them to have an accurate name and address of the person in question and the situation. Then they will do an investigation if they think it qualifies for concern.
I hope something turns around here. You might contact the child welfare agency in your county for more information about your concerns.
Copyright © 1992-2009 Psych Central. All rights reserved.
Site last updated: 22 Nov 2009
|
