By Michael D. Zito, Ph.D.
In the late 1960s, there was a self-esteem movement in the United States that had good intentions. The goal of that movement was to help children and young adults feel good about themselves based on their accomplishments and achievements. While some have stayed true to that original conceptualization, many people have morphed the positively intended movement in a negative direction by focusing on preventing disappointment and frustration as well as providing significant non-achievement or non-accomplishment-based praise, rewards, and positive feedback. This approach limits the ability of children to learn from natural life lessons and protects them from learning how to deal with frustrations and struggles. This, in turn, diminishes their self-esteem because they’ve not truly learned how to manage dilemmas successfully since they have been denied the opportunity to do so. Many parents have given their children an overabundance of positive praise unrelated to achievement, accomplishment, and/or efforts to work hard at something. This approach breeds narcissistic entitlement, not self-esteem.
It is essential to realize that self-esteem comes from positive feedback, praise and rewards connected to putting out effort to achieve a goal, or for accomplishments and achievements. This could also include trying something new and or challenging. It is important to provide children and young adults with an opportunity to figure things out independently with parental guidance, promote developmentally appropriate independence and decision making, and challenge your children to work through difficult situations.
Here are some strategies to promote true self-esteem
- Provide realistic positive feedback based on applying effort and achieving goals and accomplishments.
- Refrain from general feedback such as “you are the best,” which usually serves to promote narcissistic entitlement.
- The feedback that is provided should be specific to what was done. For example, “I really like the effort you put into studying for the math test, which is usually a difficult area for you.”
- Feedback and praise should be given while making eye contact with the recipient so you can ensure that the person has given you their full attention.
- Discourage your athletic organizations from giving trophies to everyone for simply participating. Participation acknowledgment should be more modest, and a trophy should be given to those who have achieved something specific that required hard work.
- Don’t be afraid to challenge your children to work through difficult situations rather than protecting them from these struggles.
Michael D. Zito, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (#3599) with offices in Warren and Morristown. He practices clinical and sport psychology with children through adults and can be reached at MichaelZitoPhD@yahoo.com Dr. Zito welcomes your questions and ideas for future articles.
