I have read a fantastic interview with psychiatrist Luis Rojas Marcos published in the magazine My Baby and I in February.
Talk about such an important aspect in the formation of the child's personality as it is the self-esteem. We are not born with it, although it is true that genes influence, it is forged based on the experiences we live in which the first years of life are crucial.
He explains that self-esteem is the assessment of the image that each one makes of himself. In a child that image depends, to a large extent, on the opinions that others have of him.
Parents play an essential role here. For everything we transmit to our son will influence his own assessment of himself.
Therefore, it is important that both parents and the rest of the family contribute to creating in the child a constructive self-esteem, healthy. That is, that they tend to see the positive of life and not the negative, that they are happy with their own achievements, that they are satisfied with their life and that they learn to value themselves.
The opposite of constructive self-esteem is a destructive or narcissistic self-esteem, which explains Dr. Rojas that it is a new concept to differentiate that a person with high self-esteem is not always synonymous with good self-esteem. They are people with high self-esteem, but not healthy, based on arrogance, superiority over the other.
Now how can we do to help our children to forge a constructive self-esteem and not a destructive one?
A fundamental issue is the assessments we make about them. It is not correct to label people with judgments in bad or good terms as "you are fat", "you are good" or "you are naughty", for example, children will repeat it and end up creating that image of themselves.
Maximum care with appreciations such as “you are the best in the class”, “you are the strongest of all” because they are comments that the child ends up believing, generating a feeling of superiority over others, and this is the destructive self-esteem that we do not want for our sons.
Finally, and super important, children are our mirror. The concept of self-esteem that parents profess inevitably is transmitted to our children, so once again we must lead by example.
