Children Developing Self-Worth - a Personal Observation

In the last few weeks, I have had the opportunity to spend time with my youngest grandchildren, ages 10 months to 4 years in age.  I have enjoyed interacting with them, but I have also appreciated the opportunity to observe them as they played, investigated, and problem-solved in their wonderful world of inquiry.  I noticed how the older ones have learned to navigate safely in their environment including steps, sofas, chairs, beds, uneven land, and other things.  The 10 month old is fearlessly learning those things as she anxiously presses forward in broadening her skills.
As I watched them, I was aware of the look of satisfaction and accomplishment their little faces showed when they were successful.  An experience with the 10 month old was particularly insightful.  She loves to put blankets in front of her eyes and over her head and then peek out.  One day she had a larger fleece throw.  She was doing the same as always, until her hands moved toward the center of the cover.  She would move the cover almost to the edge and then pull the other way.  I watched as she worked at it.  Since I didn't want her to become frightened, after numerous tries I helped a little but in a way she didn't realized.  She pulled the cover off and I said the traditional "peek" several times, then I noticed how proud she was.  Her little face beamed.  I clapped, she clapped, and we celebrated her success.  The real reward I experienced was seeing her so happy and proud of herself as she was successful and to see her self-worth grow.  The thought reinforced itself that afternoon that we are instrumental in the development of children's self-worth.  How we interact with them as they learn, problem-solve, and investigate the world in which they live makes a difference in how they see themselves.  
How can we do that?

Self-Worth-children

Self-Worth of Children

When did we begin to develop our self-worth?  How did we develop it?  I have been learning and observing thoughts and ideas and theories related to these questions for a long time. Some children, as well as adults, do know and understand that they are valuable and worthwhile.  They are confident, capable, problem-solving, independent children.  Others do not.  They lack the confidence in themselves and their abilities to move forward in their lives.  They wait and depend on others to tell them what, when, and how to do things.  Some are fearful of life and most things in their lives and "shut down" rather than move onward. 

Why are they so different?  

Do we as parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, friends, neighbors, teachers, etc. 

play a role in the development of self-worth of the children around us?  

If so, how?  

As I have thought about these questions and observed children, their parents, and others working with them, I am sure we do.  

It is simply how we think, feel, and treat them.  

I will be posting about this topic next.  

Self-Worth in Children

I am wonderful, valuable, worthwhile, and lovable, 

just because I AM

Be Happy

You are the one who decides.

Decide to be Happy!

Self-Worth-I Am a "One of a Kind" Miracle!

 So many times in our lives, we "sell ourselves short".  We enter this world perfect and wonderful in our own uniqueness.  Then over time we allow the influences in our lives to convince to us we are less.  In reality, we were then and are still perfect and wonderful.  As we have grown and matured, our looks have changed, our knowledge and understanding have grown, our ability to do many things has increased, and our reasoning and decision-making skills have improved.  Many changes have occurred since our birth, but what has not changed and always will  remain constant is our value and worth.  We are wonderful, valuable, worthwhile, and lovable. We will always be a "one of a kind" miracle.

Self-Worth-Choosing to Be Happy-4 More Ways

Today I want to share four more important considerations in developing and maintaining healthy beliefs and practices for self-worth.

• Replace perfectionism.  Perfectionism is destructive in our daily lives.  We can take action yet very rarely or never be satisfied with our results, but instead, we can add more negative feelings about ourselves.  We might become paralyzed from taking any action, because we are afraid of not living up to some standard we have set for ourselves.  Another might be that we procrastinate, so that it is impossible to get the results we want.  In any case, our feelings of self-worth suffer.                             How can we replace our perfectionism with wiser choices? 
• Decide to go for good enough.  A trap with perfection is that often it is never finished, because if we do one more thing it will be better.  Make it really good, but realize that there is a good enough and then it is finished.
• Perfection has myths in it. Remember that buying into those myths will likely hurt us and the people in our life.  We need to simply remind ourselves that life isn't like a movie, book, etc. where things are "perfect".  Also reality can be different that our expectations, some things just can't be predicted.  Also we need to be aware that clinging on to perfection can lead to endings of relationships, jobs, etc.
• STOP falling into the comparison trap.  When we compare ourselves and our lives to other people and their lives, we will never win.  If we are fair, we will realize we don't compare fairly and, in reality, we don't know what is really happening in other people's lives.  Also there will always be someone who has more or better than we feel we are.  This is another habit that is better replaced.  To do this we can look at how far we have come.  When we compare ourselves to us, we will be able to see the improvements we have made and what next steps we might want to make  This can motivate us and raise our feelings of self-worth.
• Be Cautious of our environment, spend more of our time in supportive environments.  Even if we focus on being kinder towards others and ourselves and replace a perfectionist habit, it will be hard to keep our self-worth up, unless our environment supports us.  It will be a challenge if there are strong influences in our daily environment that put us down.  We need to be aware of the input we are receiving.  Are there unkind, unsupportive people in our life?  If so, we can choose to spend less time with them and spend more time with positive, uplifting people who have kinder standards and ways of thinking about things and will be more supportive of our goals and dreams.  Also we need to be aware of what we are listening to, read, and watch and spend less time with things that lead us to be unsure of and negative towards ourselves.  Use that time to spend on information that helps us feel good about us and what our goals are.
• Remind ourselves often of why self-worth is important.  The simplest way to stay consistent in doing something is to remember why we are doing it.  So as we seek to build and maintain our feelings of self-worth, remember the reasons that are important. What are they?  Back on February 25th, the following reasons were listed:  
•  Our lives becomes simpler and lighter.  
• We have more inner stability.  
• We have less self-sabotage.  
• We will be more attractive in any relationship.    
• We will be happier.

We might want to place our reasons where we can refer to them often!

Learn Who You Are-Tips for Building Self-Worth-Enjoy You!

I promised to share some more tips and steps that can aide in building and maintaining stronger, healthier self-worth.  Here are a few:

• Use healthy motivation habits to motivate you to take action and raise your feelings of self-worth.
• Remind yourself of the benefits-write down benefits that you deeply feel you will get from this new path; when your list is completed, save it and put it where you can see it every day.
• Refocus on doing what you really like to do.  When you really like to do something, the motivation to do that thing is easier and more automatic, thus more success.
• If you lose your motivation, ask yourself if you are doing what you really want to do.  If not, and if possible, refocus and start working on that important thing.  

• Take a self-appreciation break
• Take a deep breath, slow down, and ask yourself what are 3 things you can appreciate about yourself. They don't have to be big things.  This builds feelings of self-worth and can turn a negative mood around to a lot of positive energy.
• Write down 3 or more things each evening that you appreciate about yourself.  This is a variation of the previous habit.  You can combine them for two powerful self-worth boosts or you can choose the one that works better for you.
• Do the right thing.  When you do what you think deep down is the right thing to do, you raise and strengthen your self-worth. It can be just a small thing, like getting up and doing a task immediately.  Sometimes it can be challenging, so it can be easier if you begin the day doing even small things that help you get off to a good start.
• Handle mistakes and failures in a positive way.  Sometimes things just don't go well or at least how we expected them.  Sometimes we make mistakes.  When that happens:
• Be your own best friend.  Instead of beating yourself up, ask yourself how would your friend support you.  Then support yourself in the same way. 
• Find the upside. Focus on optimism and opportunities of the situation.  What can you learn from it? Etc.
• Be kinder to other people.  When you are kinder to others, you will be more likely to be kinder to yourself.  
• Try something new.  When we challenge ourselves by trying something new, our opinion of ourselves goes up.  Go out of your comfort zone regularly!  It can help us feel more alive.

One of the most important factors is to realized that we are in the driver's seat.  We choose to build our own self-worth by the way we treat ourselves or allow ourselves and others to devalue ourselves.  We are only victims if we choose to be.  I have noticed over a lot of time that it takes vigilance and perseverance to maintain this, however it can become a way of thinking and being.  Enjoy the journey in learning who you really are!

You Are Worth It!

Today I want to begin by asking how you are doing with the two suggestions I offered yesterday.

• Are you ready for day 2 of looking yourself in the eye in the mirror and saying "I love you" ?
• How are you coming in learning how to stop your inner critical voice and refocusing your thoughts?

For each of them it is important to be persistent and consistent.  

Tried them yet?  Give them a try!   

They are well worth the effort.  

More suggestions tomorrow (Thursday).

How Can We Build and Strengthen Self-Worth? An Important First Step

As I shared with you last week, self-worth is different than self-esteem.  Self-worth comes from inside of the self.  It is what we think and believe about our self.  Self-esteem comes from outside, it is based on how others hold us in esteem (or not).  The exciting thing is that since it comes from inside us, we have the power to choose and control how we feel and believe about ourselves.  When we realize negative thoughts have crept in and especially if they are "running the show", it is time to change things.  We have the power to do just that.

Sometimes it may not seem possible or too hard.  If we are having these thoughts or beliefs, the voice we are hearing (sometimes called your critical inner voice) is wrong. Unfortunately, each of us has one of these inner critical voices.  It began to develop when we are very young and grew in size and strength as we got older. It is like the to proverbial snowball that gets bigger as it rolls down the hill gathering more snow and ice. This critical inner voice can become very strong, but we don't have to accept it.  It was developed on inaccurate information and can be minimized and replaced with more helpful, truthful thoughts.  When I was working in the elementary school, there was a favorite book of many children that compared this critical inner voice to be like a green monster that lived inside and kept whispering negative things.  The book told how the monster took bites out of the person's self-worth.  It then gave suggestions on how to make it get smaller with a smaller voice until it could hardly be heard at all and gave suggestions on how to strengthen self-worth. This inner voice critic tells us things like: You aren't good enough; You can't do various things; You don't deserve to be successful; You are lazy and no good; and You aren't lovable.

How do we do weaken the voice and strengthen our self-worth?

One way is to simply say "STOP!" when it starts to whisper or shout those ideas.  If we would like to do so, we can create a stop-word or stop-phrase that works well for us.  It can be said in the mind or out loud. Saying "stop" has worked well for me and when I need extra strength, I found adding, "No, I am not going there." added the extra emphasis I needed. 

Immediately replace the destructive thoughts with a different focus.  This is important.  Completely change the focus, by changing the dialogue from what can't be to what can be or change the topic entirely.  As those destructive thoughts from the critical inner voice are stopped and replaced with positive constructive thoughts, the voice will diminish in volume and frequency.  This is an important first step.  The more it is practiced, the easier it will become.
To build inner strength which will help with this and other tips, try the following suggestion.  Looking oneself in the eye in a mirror is not easy to do at times, but it works!

More tips coming.