How to help our kids to build their self esteem

 While you raise your kids, specially if you have more than one,  you for sure may find out that every child is unique, that they have their own personality and you will also realize that what works for one kid doesn´t necesary work for the other.  This is important to take care about, specially in those moments of high tension between you and your kids.  We have to take attention to their needs, their feelings, their problems and fears and try to help our kids solve their own problems, showing them that we care, we support them and specially that we love them.

In this world where most of us spend hours at work, we have to give our kids a special, a time just for them. This way we let them feel they are really important to us.  Spending time with our kids is not always easy, most of us have full time jobs so having a time out is a luxury.  We have to look not only for the right time but also for the right activity to share with your kids.  Simple things like playing sports, baking a cake with your kid, reading a story, sharing your home videos and telling them stories about them as babies, going to the museum or just going out to their favorite restaurant are really good ideas.  Most important is to do activities that you both can enjoy and have fun with, for example if you are a cooking lover and you see your child loves cooking too, what could be best than baking cookies???  I guess this never fails!!!  If you know that your kid loves history and you are also interested on that, you can make a visit to the museum or to the library and read a history book together.  You can`t imagine how similar and at the same time how different you and your kids could be.  Just an example, my 9 year old boy love sports just like his dad but also loves reading just like me, this gives us options on what we could do together.

Another important thing is to give each of our kids their own time, this is actually really difficult but we must try to do our best and maybe build a rutine to spend some moment with each child.  That way you make them feel special showing that you are making your best effort to share with them.  This could work if you plan ahead of time, also to let your kids spend time with other members of the family and with their friends.

 Some kids are social kids while others are shy.  In order to help our kids build their self steem, we have to respect their personality and do not force them to act a different way than what they really want.  We need to understand that being a shy kid is not a bad thing and let them know that we have to work more and teach them how to interact with others. We can help them techniques to avoid getting anxious when dealing with new people or new situations and try to explain that is nothing wrong on experimenting something new.

On the other hand, when you have the social kid you know that is going to be easy for you kid to deal with new people and new situations.  We must try to encorage our kids to discover new things and share their experiences with you, this may help you to find if he or she is on the right way and having good friends.  This will also let your kid feel that you are paying attention to their needs and feelings and that you approve their friends and their behaviour.

Being a mother of four kids help me realize that even when I try to have my own rules, kids will always be kids and sometimes they will not understand why we give them those rules.  But I think that explaining them that those rules are made just to help us respect each other feelings. 

They are just kids, so there a lots of thing they will not understand, most of the time they will ask some questions and you may not find the right answer.  Do not be afraid of that because this may happen all the time.  The most important thing is to help them stick to your rules but always letting them be kids.  This will help your kid build his self esteem because he will feel respected, will respect others, respect your rules but will continue being a kid and will continue building his own personality.