Not Hot and Proud To Be: Chronicle On Self-Esteem and Self-Confidence For Parents

I don’t drink beer. I don’t go out at night. I’m not on Facebook anymore. I don’t even know what is Twitter (but I know it’s seems growing in popularity since I read this word everywhere).

I don’t travel to the South at winter. Except for my ears, I don’t have any piercings. No tattoos. Not much makeup.

I don’t go to bed after 9. I don’t go to the gym. I don’t do yoga or pilates.

I never drink too much wine. I never drive my car if I had some.

I don’t like dogs. I don’t like cats. I don’t like everyone...

I do like myself.

I do have self-esteem.

I do have self-confidence.

Am I fat? No. I have a healthy weight.
Am I ugly? No. Not more or less than you are.
Am I single? No. I am happily married.
Am I crazy? No. Unless there is chocolate around!

I am proud to be who I am. For what reasons in the world should I not be?

Why are you considered “hot” only if you are popular or if you often transgress laws or rules? I don’t want to play that game! I want to be a good friend for my few friends. No need to play another me to impress them! But most of all, I want to be a good mother for my children. I want to show them that you can be yourself and that there will always be someone to share great moments with. I want to show them how great they are. I want to show them they can succeed in many things and that if they do not succeed in one activity the first time, I want them to be able to do it again and again because they will have developed self-esteem and self-confidence. I want them to believe that sky is the limit!

The two terms seem very close to me at first, but with a little bit of research, we can easily see that they are very distinct.

To be short, I would say that self-esteem is the ability for a person to be happy, to live happy the way she is (with her own forces and limits) and self-confidence is for a person to strongly believe in her abilities and capacities, in what she can achieve.

The key in helping your child building self-esteem is love. Show him how important he’s in your life. Play with him. Praise him. Smile to him. Kiss him. Tell him you love him. If you have more than one child, keep some time to be alone with each of them alternatively.

Another great way to help your child building self-esteem is to ask them making important chores with you such as cleaning or cooking. More than being happy to help you, this will help him developing lots of abilities.

Give your child examples of what is normal in life. He needs to know that a child who succeeds more than well in all subjects at school is not standard and that he doesn’t need to be part of all his school’s sports teams to be a great person with lots of great abilities. Explain him that nobody’s perfect and that he doesn’t have to be neither. Help him discover his own limits.

A child may know he’s able to ride a bike, but he must have confidence to ride it alone to the school for example. A good way to help him building his confidence is to trust him and to praise all his efforts.

Encouraging your child to try new things is also very important. I remember the time I cooked a vegetable soup with my 3-year-old girl. I gave her a small unsharpened knife and ask her to cut a zucchini. She did it and did it well! You should have seen the light in her eyes and the smile in her face when she realized she could do it.

Also, be patient and let your child learn from his mistakes. Always be positive, consistent, honest and communicate clearly. This way, your child will know what is expected from you and know that he can trust you. This will encourage him the day you will propose to try something new, something different. Did I put enough emphasis on the terms « be positive »? Being positive is very important. Remember that your child will gain no confidence if you criticize him or if you’re not able to see the effort he put in choosing the yellow color for his square sun on his drawing.

Now, go on: be yourself and let the sunshine comes in your life and in your child’s life!

Since helping our child building good self-esteem and self-confidence is impossible without having firstly built all that ourselves, I would like to write the following to my parents:

I am thankful for you who shared with me all your great values and believed in me and encouraged me in everything I did when I was young. I know I would never have been who I am today if you haven’t done all that and be so patient. I wish I can be like you and be able to show my children love, compassion, respect and help them building self-esteem and self-confidence like you did with my siblings and I.