10 praise for each reproach: boost your children's self-esteem!
The first years of life are fundamental for children to acquire self-confidence, so that they learn self-rating and be able to overcome each challenge. The attitude and assessment that parents make about them and their actions have a fundamental role in this achievement.
As of 4 years old, our children have stopped being babies and they are turning into little people. They begin to develop a personality that will depend, in a very high percentage, on the way in which we treat them and see them.
Many experts say that the most important ages for the development of self-esteem are early and middle childhood, that is, three to ten years. And at this age children focus on the feelings they have regarding them and their personal value. They will create their self-concept and self-esteem based on our evaluations.
Therefore, we must take special care of their development and ensure that we provide strong self-esteem. Of this it will depend that they are safe and determined children, since everything what is obtained in this period can seal its conduct and its position towards the life in the adult age.
Value the positive to develop a strong self-esteem
For our son to develop a strong self-esteem, it is necessary to value everything that does well and what stands out. If we do not value their behaviors positively, they will not know if they are good or less good and, therefore, if they are doing things right or not.
This assessment must be daily, constant and natural. Every day there is some positive behavior to enhance and highlight, even those days when children have behaved worse. We have to stop and think and analyze the day, we will surely find something to highlight.
If we habitually do the exercise of finding positive aspects to value and highlight in our children, there will come a time when it is done naturally, establishing an educational style based on positive reinforcement.
When should we praise children?
The child should always be praised for raising their self-esteem. All positive behavior must be praised. It will be the only way the child has to know that what he is doing is really good and that is how they should behave. In fact, we must compensate each reproach with 10 praise to raise self-esteem to children.
There is no specific age or specific time, but all ages and all moments are timely and appropriate. Children with High self-steem They have an advantage over everything, which is happiness. They are happier and happier children. On the other hand, they feel competent, more confident and valuable. This security, in the future will help them to:
- Be responsible.
- Be clear about where they are going and what they want to achieve.
- Trust more in themselves.
- To have more strength and resources to fight and try to achieve their objectives, as well as to solve possible difficulties that may arise.
- Be emotionally stronger.
- Communicate fluently.
- Know how to maintain more stable and lasting social relationships.
- Be more optimistic and spread that optimism to others.
Safety is critical to success
In order for you to value yourself and consider yourself capable of doing this and that, it is essential that you feel safe, accepted and loved by those around you. It is essential that you feel that your parents love you as you are.
Excessively demanding parents can achieve that a child with a high capacity does not get more than to take the courses scraping. Another more normal one will be able to obtain the best grades, because his parents have accepted him as he is and have oriented his expectations towards very specific aspects of his development.
The child needs to check that they want him for being him, not to get good grades or not to break plates. It would never be advisable for him to think that he must fulfill the expectations of his parents to buy his affection or trust.
On the other hand, it is not bad that he knows them, if they are reasonable and possible for him, because they will also give him the opportunity to fight and obtain successes that will give joy to the parents. If the child feels loved and accepted, he will have a more positive attitude, will be able to set realistic goals and, in this way, self-motivate to reach even higher goals.
You can with everything!
Our son will also thank and respond much better with a gesture of approval and a few words of encouragement with the right degree of reproach, than with four shouts and a quick and unappealable punishment.
The key to success in self-esteem education of our children is in the climate that is established with the adults around him. Much more effective than raising your voice or -peor- your hand, is to use praise and motivation.
A "You can, champion!" It can make the child go much further than he and we ourselves would have thought. This expression must never be missing from our lips. The more disaster the little one is, the more he will need to hear those words of encouragement and, above all, to verify that we have confidence in him.
Conchita Requero
Advice: María Campo Martínez. Director of Kinder Schools Kimba
