One and all parents find it unpleasant when they notice that their child has low self-esteem. Unsure of their own strength, children feel uncomfortable with their peers as well as with adults; they experience their failures and learn much worse than others.
How to recognize low self-esteem
Most often, parents will learn about this problem from a child psychologist in the first years of schooling for a child. However, they can also reveal low self-esteem and start to fight it if they carefully observe the behavior of their child and listen to what he says.
Children with low self-esteem often say phrases such as "I do not know", "I can not" and "I will not succeed." The behavior of a child in the circle of his peers can be very indicative: unsure children can be uncommunicative, shy, and sometimes behave too defiantly. Very often hooligans and bullies actually feel insecurity and internal anxiety, and their behavior is just a mask for others.
The beginning problem can be identified with the help of a simple psychological test: you just need to ask the kid to draw himself. If the little man in the picture looks clumsy and the child uses only dark colors for decoration, it says without a word that the parents have good reasons for concern. If a child with low self-esteem is asked to draw the whole family, then he draws himself disproportionately small compared to the others.
Causes of low self-esteem
Often, low self-esteem can be observed in children from single-parent families or in those who suffer from physical disabilities (for example, they stutter, are overweight, do not pronounce a few letters, or wear glasses). Children are very cruel and tactless and can come up with such a child offensive nicknames.
Sometimes the fact that the child has low self-esteem, the parents are guilty. If dad or mom, when something didn’t work out for him, they say that the baby doesn’t know how or understands anything, the child can withdraw into himself and be convinced of his worthlessness. The same manifestations occur in children whose parents prohibit them too much or, through excessive care, prevent them from discovering the world on their own.
How to deal with low self-esteem
To help your child become self-confident, parents should praise him more often, focusing on strengths and successes and ignoring failures. If a child has serious problems with academic performance, you need to help him do his homework. Next to the parents, the baby will feel more confident. When the task is completed, the child must be praised, not forgetting to mention that they can be proud of, because he did the most difficult thing himself.
If the child suffers from the ridicule of his peers, it is necessary to find out the reason and try to eliminate it. For example, if a child is overweight, you can adjust his diet with him or choose a sports section, and if the child cannot pronounce some letters, you can write him down for classes with a speech therapist. The disadvantage that cannot be corrected, you must either turn into dignity, or try to make invisible, having taught the child to focus on their own merits.
An insecure kid needs to help get close to his peers and win authority in their eyes. For this you can arrange for him and his comrades an unforgettable holiday, for example, in honor of his birthday. The most important thing is to never complain about problems with a child, not to scold your life and not to diminish your merits, since children tend to imitate their parents in everything.
