After 4 decades of practicing pediatric and adolescent medicine let me tell you what I’ve learned about how your child develops self-esteem. You can not build your child’s self-esteem; self-esteem comes from within. It is developed by your child setting a goal and accomplishing it. Home work is a good example. If a child decides to do his homework and completes it satisfactorily he develops self-esteem, unless his parent does the work for him, or “re-writes” it so it “looks” better. The same can be said about house-hold chores. Chores help your child know he is needed in the family; when chores extend to volunteering at church or school he learns he is also an important part of his community. And accomplishing those tasks re-enforces his self-esteem.
So many parents, at the advice of the so call “experts” think they can improve their kids self esteem by lavishing them with praise. Praise is good and necessary; words of praise should out-number words of criticism, correction, and fault finding by a factor of 100 to 1! Honest compliments and other affirmations are so important in how children see themselves, how they see others, and how they react to and with others. But words are only an adjunct to building self-esteem and all efforts must be make to assure that the praise you give is genuine! False praise makes your kid think he has a fool for a parent and makes him wonder if the apple has fallen near the tree.