Excerpted from The
Seeds of Greatness Treasury
An ancient Chinese proverb tells us, "A child's
life is like a piece of paper on which every passerby
leaves a mark." We cannot teach our children
self-esteem. We can only help them discover it
within themselves by adding positive marks and strokes
on their slates. All positive motivation is rooted
in self-esteem – the development of which, just as
with other skills, takes practice. Think of
self-esteem as a four-legged chair.
A Sense of Belonging: The first leg of self-esteem
is a sense of belonging. We all have a deep-seated
need to feel we're part of something larger than
ourselves. This need, which psychologists call an
affiliation drive, encompasses people, places and
possessions. Our instinct for belonging – for
being wanted, accepted, enjoyed, and loved by close ones
– is extremely powerful. It explains the bond of
an extended family, friends, and teammates. It
also explains why some adolescents join gangs.
They want to belong, even if it’s wrong.
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Make your children proud of their family heritage and
make your home a place where they feel safe, loved and
welcome. Also, make your home a place where your
children want to bring their friends, rather than a
place they want to leave as soon as possible.
A Sense of Individual Identity: The second leg,
which complements the sense of belonging, is a sense of
individual identity. No human being is exactly
like another, not even an identical twin. We are
all unique combinations of talents and traits that never
existed before and will never exist again in quite the
same package. (This explains why most parents
believe their children came from different planets!)
Observe your children as they grow and play. Watch
their learning styles. Notice what they love to do
in their free time. Help them discover their
unique positive talents and help nurture them into
skills. Report cards don't necessarily measure
talents. They often are a measure only of
discipline, memory and attention span.
A Sense of Worthiness: The third leg of
self-esteem is a sense of worthiness, the feeling that
I'm glad I'm me, with my genes and background, my body,
my unique thoughts. Without our own approval, we
have little to offer. If we don't feel worth
loving, it's hard to believe that others love us;
instead, we tend to see others as appraisers or judges
of our value.
Show your children unconditional love. Carefully
separate the doer from the deed, and the performer from
the performance. The message "I love you no
matter what happens, and I'm always there for you"
is one of most important concepts in building a feeling
of worthiness or intrinsic value in children.
After every reprimand, let them know you love
them. Before they go to sleep at night, give them
the reassurance that, regardless of what happened that
day, you love them unconditionally.
A healthy sense of belonging, identity, and worthiness
can only be rooted in intrinsic core values as opposed
to outer, often material, motivation. Without
them, we depend on others constantly to fill our leaking
reserves of self-esteem – but also tend to suspect
others of ulterior motives. Unable to accept or
reject others' opinions for what they're worth, we are
defensive about criticism and paranoid about praise –
and no amount of praise can replace the missing
qualities.
A healthy sense of belonging, identity, and worthiness
is also essential to belief in your dreams. It is
most essential during difficult times, when you have
only a dream to hang on to.
A Sense of Control and Competence:
Early in my
career in motivational psychology, I thought the chair
of self-esteem balanced firmly on those three legs,
especially since they involved intrinsic core
values. It took much time and research to realize
that a fourth leg – one of the most important – was
missing.
There are many reasons why few Americans currently in
high school and college believe they were born to
win. The supportive extended family – in many
cases, even the nuclear family – is
disappearing. Role models are increasingly
unhealthy. The commercial media bombards young
senses ever more insistently with crime, violence,
hedonism, and other unhealthy forms of escape. But
whatever the explanation, constructive citizens and
leaders in society cannot emerge and develop without the
creative imagination that serves them like fuel –
which is why the apprehension, frustration, and
hesitation I see and hear in the younger generation is
cause for concern. At the moment, the future they
imagine will help drive neither happiness nor success.
The chair's fourth leg is self-efficacy, a functional
belief in your ability to control what happens to you in
a changing, uncertain world. A sense of worthiness
may give you the emotional means to venture, but you
need self-efficacy, the sense of competence and control,
to believe you can succeed. That's why it is so
important to assign responsibility for small tasks to
your children as early as possible so they can learn
that their choices and efforts result in consequences
and successes. The more success they experience,
the stronger their confidence grows – and the more
responsibility they want to assume.
Give them specific household chores and duties they can
accomplish and be proud of. Teach them that their
problems and setbacks are just temporary inconveniences
and learning experiences. Emphasize it
constantly: Setbacks are not failures.
Armed with a view of failure as a learning experience,
children can develop an early eagerness for new
challenges and will be less afraid to try new
skills. Although they appreciate compliments, they
benefit most from their own belief that they are making
a valuable contribution to life, according to their own
internal standards.
In an increasingly competitive global marketplace, each
new, young member of the workforce simply must believe
that he or she is a team leader, a self-empowered,
quality individual who expresses that quality in
excellent production and service. With increasing
pressures on profit and the need to do more with fewer
workers because of e-commerce and changing technology,
it is essential that parents and business leaders help
raise the value of their children's and employees' stock
in themselves.
Our Kids are Not Our Clones
One of the most valuable lessons I have learned in being
an effective family leader and in raising six children
is to "Treat our children with the same respect we
expect from them." Our children are not
clones or copies of us. Although they mimic us and
other adults as role models, they cannot be expected to
feel or act the way we do. Khalil Gibran is my favorite
on the subject:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for
itself….
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which
you cannot visit,
Not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make
them be like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday
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Reproduced with permission from the Denis Waitley Ezine. To subscribe to
Denis Waitley's Ezine, go to deniswaitley.com. Copyright Denis Waitley International. All rights
reserved worldwide.
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