Children are born into this world knowing next to nothing other than what their senses, still fresh and unencumbered by experience, can relay to them. There is no worth to the world in their eyes in their initial moments, nor is there any reason to believe that it will fade away with the next breath. Children are innocents in every sense of the word in that they are vessels waiting to be filled with the vast experience that is life, and the knowledge of what to do with what they have been given. The lives of children are made by how they are taught to think and react to the world around them.
Children are a product of the guardians that raise them, be they parents, relatives, or an appointed caretaker. Briggs (7) states that children are a mirror for their caretakers, means by which children discover how to act and what course their lives will take. To children, adults are infallible, almost godlike in a way that speaks of absolute and utter faith in an authority that is not to be questioned. But the manner in how parents and other guardians represent themselves in the eyes of their children is typically how children learn to act and gain a sense of self-awareness. In this regard it is important to not only present a decent and well-rounded example, but to encourage children by building them up to believe that they too are just as good.
equipped to deal with negativity on a large scale. What this means is that putting children down,
calling them names, showing little to no affection or love towards a child, can produce a very
low sense of self-esteem. As Briggs (9) states, if a child is treated as a loser for their formative years they will eventually come to believe this on their own and potentially traverse a life filled with ill-advised choices and mistakes. This is typically what is known as a “self-fulfilling prophecy”, the act of living up to one’s own expectations.
A large part of self-esteem is grounded in trust. Children must be able to trust the adults in their lives and be certain that said adults will keep their word when their real needs must be met. Desires and wants are secondary to what children truly need, such as food, shelter, clothing, and a general sense of well-being. Adults that can and do provide such necessities contribute to the greater development and establishment of self-esteem in children. In this manner trust is earned and given as children learn that they can rely upon their elders to take care of them.
Every facet of life that a child experiences takes part in shaping who they are and who they will become, but few are as influential as those they interact with on a regular basis. Children seek to learn, they seek to act, and they seek to become a part of the world around them. Finding their place within it is a journey that they must make, but along the way it is important to instill within them the bedrock principles of self-worth and self-awareness. In gaining these principles the control they exert over their own lives will increase with time.
The mind of a child is extremely impressionable during their earliest years, but highly impressionable as well. Children believe what is told to them by those who have the greatest influence on their development, and thus it is important to take great care in how they are raised to see the world. Negativity will breed negativity, while positive input tends to open up the world to many who wish to not only see what is offered but do so with a sense of personal worth. In fostering self-esteem in a child it is possible to create a happy, functioning member of society.
Works Cited
Briggs, Dorothy Corkille, M.S. Your Child’s Self-Esteem. New York: Harmony Books, 1988.
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