What Is Self-Esteem

What Is Self-Esteem And Why Is It Important For Children?

Self-esteem is comparable to self-worth, which essentially means how a person values himself or herself.  A person can think highly of himself or herself and be self-confident in their skills and in their ability to adapt.  

Conversely, a person can be down on themselves and doubt their skills along with their ability to adapt. 

There will always be times when a person’s view of oneself changes if they experience a lot of successes or failures. It is only human nature to question whether they have made progress or if they regressed when a string of successes or failures occur.  However, oftentimes, the way a person will view themselves will be pretty constant, and this view is usually molded in childhood.

A child who is encouraged often about their skills and their ability to learn and adapt will often develop a positive self-esteem about themselves. This includes how they view their skills and their ability to adapt to challenging situations.  This skill set is essential in life because, life throws many “curveballs” that you cannot really predict ahead of time. 

You have to be able to adapt quickly to each situation using the information you have in hand to make the best decision possible.  This is how, often, the best outcomes can be reached.  Those children who have positive self-esteem usually turn into the adults that can more easily adapt to life’s challenging situations the easiest.

Conversely, kids who are usually not encouraged about their own skills and their ability to learn and adapt will often find it difficult later in life to overcome challenging situations.  This can be problematic for these adults because life is challenging at times for everyone; virtually, no one escapes life without some unexpected challenges thrown their way.  

However, there are times when kids are encouraged by their parents or caregivers, yet still develop low self-esteem because they doubt their abilities.  This can be because they feel that they don’t do a certain subject or task as well, or just feel socially awkward toward other people their age (i.e. feel shyness).  Therefore, it’s not always due to a lack of encouragement by the parents or caregivers; sometimes, kids just happen to develop low self-esteem.

As you read above, it is vital for kids to develop the life skills needed to handle life’s challenges that will come their way as they grow into adults. This includes moving out of their parents’ homes, getting a job and starting a career, falling in love and raising a family of their own, etc. 

It’s easier to handle these tasks when they are starting with a healthy, strong self-esteem, and this is more likely to occur if they start developing that self-esteem while they are children.  Once life’s other challenges come into play as adults, it’s much harder to gain that stronger self-esteem as an adult (though not impossible).

Therefore, parents should be supportive and willing to allow their children to make mistakes and explore their abilities, including mentally, physically, emotionally, artistically, etc.  This will help them to learn what skills they are best at and where they can use improvement, to which the parents can help encourage them to improve those areas. 

Having a healthy self-esteem is key to handling life’s challenges more easily.  Developing that healthy self-esteem as a child tends to lead to adults who can more easily handle life’s challenges when it comes to home life, career, love, and more.  Parents can help put their children on the right path by being supportive and helping them explore what skills they are strong in and what skills they can improve upon at an early age.

Developing a healthy level of Self Confidence will go along long ways in helping our loved ones live a life that they can be proud of and enjoy! As adults we know this, but the sad part is that many of us also suffer from a low level of self confidence and self esteem. 

The Functional Self Confidence program will help our young people develop the self confidence and self esteem that they will need to be successful in life. Check out the full story here!

The Champion's Mindset is geared towards adults with the idea that they will in turn pass this valuable training on to their loved ones.