Building Healthy Self-Esteem in Children

Every parent wants their child to feel confident and capable, to believe in themselves enough to try new things and bounce back from setbacks. But building genuine self-esteem isn't as simple as showering kids with praise or shielding them from failure. In fact, some well-meaning approaches can backfire.

Healthy self-esteem isn't about feeling special or superior—it's about having an accurate, accepting view of yourself, including your strengths and weaknesses. It's the foundation that allows children to take risks, handle criticism, form healthy relationships, and navigate life's inevitable challenges.

What Self-Esteem Actually Is AAP

Self-esteem is how your child feels about themselves—their sense of worth, competence, and belonging. It develops over time through experiences, relationships, and internal dialogue.

Healthy self-esteem looks like:

• Feeling generally good about oneself
• Accepting both strengths and weaknesses
• Willing to try new things
• Able to handle criticism and setbacks
• Not needing constant external validation
• Treating self and others with respect
• Resilient when things go wrong

Low self-esteem looks like:

• Constant negative self-talk ("I'm stupid," "No one likes me")
• Afraid to try for fear of failure
• Overly sensitive to criticism
• Gives up easily
• Dependent on external validation
• May put others down to feel better
• Avoids challenges

Inflated self-esteem (not the goal):

• Cannot handle any criticism
• Doesn't see own weaknesses
• May bully or belittle others
• Entitled, expects special treatment
• Fragile when challenged

The goal is healthy self-esteem—accurate, stable, and not dependent on being "the best."

What Builds Self-Esteem AAP

Self-esteem grows from three main sources:

### 1. Sense of belonging and being loved

Children need to feel:

• Valued and loved unconditionally
• Important to their family
• Part of a community (school, friends, teams)
• That someone has their back

How to nurture this:

• Show physical affection
• Spend quality one-on-one time
• Listen when they talk—really listen
• Be interested in their world
• Create family rituals and traditions
• Say "I love you" (even when they're older)
• Love them for who they are, not what they achieve

### 2. Sense of competence

Children need to feel:

• Capable of doing things
• Good at something
• Able to solve problems
• That effort leads to improvement

How to nurture this:

• Let them struggle (appropriately) before helping
• Give age-appropriate responsibilities
• Celebrate effort, not just results
• Help them find activities where they can grow
• Avoid doing things for them they can do themselves
• Provide scaffolded challenges—hard enough to stretch, not so hard they fail

### 3. Sense of control and autonomy

Children need to feel:

• Some control over their lives
• That their choices matter
• Able to influence outcomes
• That their voice is heard

How to nurture this:

• Offer choices (even small ones)
• Ask their opinion
• Let them make age-appropriate decisions
• Allow natural consequences (within safety)
• Include them in family decisions
• Respect their privacy (age-appropriately)

The Problem With Overpraising

Somewhere along the way, parents got the message that more praise = more self-esteem. But research shows that's not quite right.

Too much praise can:

• Make children dependent on external validation
• Teach them to perform for approval
• Feel hollow if not specific and earned
• Create pressure to maintain a "perfect" image
• Backfire when they face real challenges

"You're so smart!" vs. "You worked hard on that":

• Praising fixed traits (smart, talented) can make children afraid to try hard things (might prove they're NOT smart)
• Praising effort teaches that work leads to results
• Children praised for being smart often avoid challenges
• Children praised for effort embrace challenges

Better praise:

• Be specific: "I noticed you kept trying even when it was hard."
• Praise the process: "Your practice is really paying off."
• Praise the effort: "You worked really hard on that project."
• Praise growth: "You're getting better at this."
• Mean it—children detect false praise

How to Respond to Failure and Setbacks AAP

How you react when your child fails matters enormously for their self-esteem and resilience.

What helps:

• Normalize failure: "Everyone messes up sometimes."
• Focus on learning: "What did you learn from this?"
• Validate feelings: "It's okay to be disappointed."
• Express confidence in their ability to cope: "You'll figure this out."
• Share your own failures and what you learned
• Separate the failure from their worth: "You made a mistake. That doesn't make you a bad person."

What hurts:

• Rescuing them from consequences
• Minimizing: "It's not a big deal"
• Overly focusing on the failure
• Expressing disappointment in them (vs. the situation)
• Punishing for honest mistakes
• Doing things for them to prevent future failure

The goal: Children who can fail, learn, and try again—not children who never fail.

Common Self-Esteem Killers

Comparisons:

• "Why can't you be more like your sister?"
• Comparing to other children (even positively) teaches that worth is relative
• Instead: Focus on their individual growth and efforts

Conditional love:

• Love that seems dependent on achievement
• Withdrawal of affection when they disappoint
• "I'm proud of you when..." (implies not proud otherwise)
• Instead: Love them regardless of performance

Harsh criticism:

• "You never do anything right"
• Global attacks on character vs. specific behavior
• Sarcasm and ridicule
• Instead: Criticize behavior, not the child; be specific and constructive

Overprotection:

• Not letting them try (and potentially fail)
• Solving all their problems
• Communicates: "I don't think you can handle this"
• Instead: Allow age-appropriate challenges and independence

Ignoring or dismissing feelings:

• "You're fine, stop crying"
• Not taking their concerns seriously
• Being too busy to listen
• Instead: Validate feelings, even if you don't agree with behavior

Building Competence AAP

Self-esteem grows when children actually become competent at things—not when we tell them they're great regardless of effort.

Help them find their thing:

• Expose them to various activities
• Notice where they light up
• Support interests even if different from yours
• Not every child is athletic/musical/academic—find their strengths

Allow productive struggle:

• Don't jump in to help at the first sign of difficulty
• "Try one more thing, then I'll help if you need it"
• Model perseverance yourself
• Celebrate when they work through something hard

Give real responsibilities:

• Age-appropriate chores build competence
• Contributing to the family matters
• Let them do things imperfectly
• Their help is valuable even if you could do it faster

Avoid learned helplessness:

• Children who have everything done for them learn they can't do things
• Each small accomplishment builds confidence
• Let them experience the connection between effort and result

Nurturing Internal Motivation

Children with healthy self-esteem are motivated from within—they don't need constant external rewards or validation.

Reduce focus on rewards:

• Praise and rewards can actually undermine intrinsic motivation
• Focus on the activity itself: "Did you enjoy that?"
• Let natural consequences teach
• Ask: "How do you feel about how you did?"

Ask growth-focused questions:

• "What was the hardest part?"
• "What are you most proud of?"
• "What would you do differently?"
• "What did you learn?"

Model self-compassion:

• How you talk about yourself matters
• Avoid self-criticism in front of children
• Show how you handle your own mistakes
• Demonstrate that imperfection is okay

When Self-Esteem is Significantly Low AAP

Some children struggle more significantly with self-esteem. Watch for:

Warning signs:

• Persistent negative self-talk
• Avoiding all challenges
• Withdrawal from friends and activities
• Physical symptoms (stomachaches, headaches)
• Changes in eating or sleeping
• Statements about worthlessness
• Self-harm or suicidal thoughts

When to seek help:

• Low self-esteem is persistent (not just a phase)
• It's affecting daily functioning
• Depression or anxiety symptoms
• You've tried strategies without improvement
• Your gut says something is wrong

Where to get help:

• Start with your pediatrician
• School counselor
• Child therapist or psychologist
• Family therapy can help family dynamics

The Parent's Self-Esteem Matters Too

Your own self-esteem affects how you parent. Children learn from watching you.

Model healthy self-esteem:

• How you handle your own mistakes
• How you talk about yourself
• How you accept compliments
• How you persist through challenges
• How you treat yourself when you fail

Take care of yourself:

• Your well-being matters
• Model self-care
• Seek help for your own struggles
• A parent with healthy self-esteem is better equipped to nurture it in children

The Bottom Line

Building self-esteem isn't about making children feel like they're the best at everything or protecting them from all difficulty. It's about helping them develop an accurate, accepting view of themselves and the skills to navigate an imperfect world.

The most important ingredients are:

• Unconditional love and belonging
• Opportunities to develop real competence
• Support through failure and setbacks
• Space for autonomy and voice
• Honest, specific feedback
• Your own modeling of healthy self-esteem

Clara is here to help you support your child's confidence and self-worth.