Helping Babies & Children Build Self-Esteem
That is why, as much as possible, children should develop healthy self-esteem during childhood years.
Positive self-esteem would certainly be a child's asset as he moves on the journey and conquer the world's many challenges. Take note that children who have healthy self-esteem tend to succeed when facing life's negative pressures and conflicts.
Low self-esteem transforms children to become individuals who are frustrated and anxious about how the world works. Such children tend to become societal problems and deprive themselves of the many opportunities that may otherwise come their way.
Children with low self-esteem also become apparently self-critical, withdrawn, depressed and passive. They tend not to become open to challenges and natural changes and underestimate their own capability.
Defining self-esteem
Before attempting to help children develop positive self-esteem, it is imperative that you first know the nature and meaning of self-esteem.
Self-esteem is self-perception and is the set of beliefs and feelings one has about him or herself. Self-esteem is directly implicated with confidence and fighting spirit; the very significant factors that help every individual accomplish tasks and head towards achievement.
Psychologists emphasize that self-esteem begins to be manifested early in life. As a toddler, you may probably remember the sense of achievement you attain when you start learning how to stand or how to reach for objects.
It is important to note that one achievement would pave the way for another achievement. As life goes on, those accomplishments become parts of a chain that define the overall personality of a person.
If the child develops low self-esteem, he may tend to be critical of himself and doubt his ability, leaving him to just sit and not exert effort to achieving any other attainments. Such a situation is truly dangerous.
In contrast, children with high self-esteem exhibit boldness and courage to keep on trying to achieve goals. They are not afraid to try, even fail.
They treat failures as learning experiences that would be of great help to achieve many other goals in the future.
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Helping children build self-esteem
Helping Children Build Self-Esteem
Here are several simple tips on how you, as a parent, could help foster high self-esteem in your child.Be careful of what you say. Sometimes, people tend to say out loud expressions that may be taken as comments on people.
If you say something bad after learning what your child did or failed to do, like 'stupid', he may retain that and tag himself as stupid.
Remember, children are very sensitive to the words their parents say to them. Try to be as positive and praise your child for any achievement, be it simple or great, he may attain.
Set a good role model. Children will always look up to you as a model, so try to act as appropriately as you can, especially when they around. They would tend to imitate your manners and deeds, so be extremely careful in setting out examples.
Be affectionate
. Aside from moral and emotional support, experts assert that children need to be loved. Remember, you can never boost your child's self-esteem without making it clear to him that he is unconditionally loved. Another point, if the child perceives that his parents do not leave, he might start wondering, who else will? That would make him feel insignificant.Give praise
. Praise your child whenever he does good deeds or achieves a simple goal. Be lavish in praise and subtle and constructive in criticism. For example, if your child fails a math test, tell him you are proud that he made his best instead of putting pressure by saying that he should have done better.Make the home his sanctuary, his source of nurturing and love. To do so, make sure you and your spouse do not stage a fight in front of the child. A child who may witness ugly encounters may tend to be depressed and become withdrawn, leading him to a lower self-esteem.
If you think you cannot easily and effectively handle that, try seeking advice and professional help from a child or family counselor.
Do not hesitate to do the best you can to develop healthy self-esteem in your child. It is your responsibility to raise him to become a good and achieving individual in the future.
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Bright From the Start: The Simple, Science-Backed Way to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind fromBirth to Age 3
Amazon Price: $17.16 (as of 12/11/2009)
Should I really read to my baby? Is all TV bad, or only some TV? What kind of toys do babies need? Can teaching a baby sign language really boost IQ? How should my caregiver be stimulating my baby? Should I pipe classical music into the nursery?
New parents are often overwhelmed with information and advice, and in an effort to give their babies the best chances in life they buy DVDs, CDs, toys, and gear all meant to make them smarter. As co-founder of New Directions Institute for Infant Brain Development, Dr. Jill Stamm knows what most parents and child caregivers suspect: the way we care for a very young child's developing brain has the power to shape and influence many aspects of his or her life. Contrary, however, to the belief that the "right things" can make your child a genius, the research shows that what your child needs is simpler than you think and within every parent's ability to provide.
In Bright from the Start, Jill translates the latest neuroscience findings into clear explanations and practical suggestions, showing you the importance of the simple ways you interact with your child every day. A leading authority in infant brain development, Dr. Stamm makes new, remarkable findings accessible to everyone in Bright from the Start. What babies need isn't a lot of "edu-tainment." What they need is as easy as A, B, C:
ATTENTION: showing you how to increase a child's attention span, and how to balance stimulation with down time.
BONDING: illustrating the importance of developing a strong emotional attachment between a child and a consistent caregiver-and why this is key to cognitive development.
COMMUNICATION: with breakthrough advice for tapping the connection between verbal engagement with parents and higher IQ rates among children.
Stamm also discusses what kind of childcare environment to select, why learning toys don't teach as much as you think, why reading to baby is critical and why you should limit TV time. Practical games and tips for each developmental age group will show you not only what the latest findings are but more importantly, tell you what to do with them.
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Learning and Developing Emotions
How does a person become the emotionally complex person he is?What are the origins of his daily frustrations, his morbid fears, his feelings of love?
Is a person born with all his emotions or are they learned?
Or do the emotions develop both through maturation and learning?
Research has shown that the emotions do develop and mature from infancy through adulthood, partly as a function of the growth and development of the central and autonomic nervous systems.
Some emotional responses are inborn, although they may not appear until the child has reached a certain stage of growth.
However, research also shows that many emotional responses are learned through experience. In view of the complex nature of our emotions, it is not surprising that their development should be equally complex.
A newborn baby is a helpless, undeveloped organism that does little more than drink milk, move around a bit, cry when hungry or uncomfortable, and sleep. However, if you startle a baby by sounding a bell or flashing a light, you may cause the baby to cry.
The young infant does react to pain, discomfort, or startling stimuli, but his or her reactions are of a very global, uncontrolled nature. We might say that his or her emotional life simply consists of degrees of comfort and discomfort.
As the baby grows and develops, he or she learns to interact with people and things in his or her environment, and his or her emotional responses begin to increase in number. By the age of five months, a baby may show signs of both pleasant and unpleasant emotions, including distress and even anger. Delight may clearly be present by the third month, while most signs of love and affection may not until the baby is 10 or 11 months old.
In the same way that a child must be able to move his or her arms and legs before he or she can learn to walk, the child must physiologically be capable of producing and experiencing particular emotions before these can be modified through learning.
Classical conditioning
Psychologists have found that there are two basic processes by which learning takes place. One kind of learning is called classical conditioning. This occurs when one event or stimulus is consistently paired with, or followed by, a reward or punishment. It is through classical conditioning that a child learns to associate his or her mother's face and voice with happiness and love, for he or she learns that this person provides food and comfort.
Negative emotions are learned in a similar fashion. If a child is bitten or startled several times by a dog, he or she may learn to associate furry animals with pain or startle and, thus, develop a fear of them.
Operant conditioning
The second kind of learning is called operant conditioning. This occurs when an individual learns to do things that produce rewards in his or her environment and learns not to do things that produce punishments. For example, if a mother always attends to her baby when he cries and cuddles him until he is quiet, she may teach the baby that if he or she cries he or she will get attention from the mother. Thus, the baby will learn to increase crying in order to have the mother more.
Every day, we grow and have new experiences. We constantly learn by reading, watching television, interacting with other people, and so forth. This learning affects our emotions. If a person is nice to use, cares about us, and tries to do positive things for us, we learn Self Esteem
through classical conditioning and to associate this person with positive feelings. One the other hand, if a person is mean, we associate him or her with negative emotions.
In other words, how we react emotionally depends not only on maturation and learning but on how we feel at that moment. Our emotional responses to various stimuli will vary, depending on what factors influence us at the time.
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Developing Good Manners In Kids
It is never too early to teach children good manners. Studies show that even at a very young age, kids are already capable of learning and experiencing empathy and concern for others. Teaching manners becomes easier when it is a common practice in the household.As social beings, children learn by doing, says child development theorist John Dewey. From birth onward, children are constantly picking up emotional and behavioral cues from the people around them - parents, siblings, caregivers, etc. However, it is not enough to simply tell children what to do and say; showing them by example counts most.
Here are three sample scenarios to check the right way to react to everyday situations in order to train your kids toward good etiquette.
1. Dinnertime
You, your husband, and your two-year-old son are having dinner. You son orders, "Mom, pass the salt." You:
a. Give an elaborate speech on politeness
b. Hand over the bowl of rice and curtly say, "Here." That should signal that he did something wrong.
c. Respond with, "Sure. But only if you say 'Please, pass the salt.'"
Answer: C
By the age of two, kids begin to form simple phrases, looking for ways to apply them. By teaching toddlers to say, "Please," "Thank you," and "You're welcome," you ultimately teach them how to show respect and gratitude. These are short but well-meaning words apt for your tot's early vocabulary.
At this stage, kids focus more on imitating the behavior of adults and older children. When kids see you respond to others with warmth and kindness, they will learn to idealize this and act in a like fashion.
2. Wiping Kisses
Your mother in law visits and meets your son for the first time. She hugs and kisses him excitedly, but he pushes her away and wipes his cheeks with his shirt. You:
a. Send him to a corner, which should compel him to think about his ill and disrespectful behavior.
b. Laugh at what happened. Kids will be kids. What can you do?
c. Apologize to your mother in law, then explain to your son how he should behave.
Answer: C
Meeting people for the first time may not come as easily to very young kids as it does to grown-ups. Don't expect kids to be congenial with every new person you introduce to them.
However, though children at this age may not always be able to control their emotions and reactions, they should still learn how to behave, especially toward elders or relatives. This helps prep them for future first-time encounters.
As in the case of the kiss-wiping little boy, apologizing right away to the mother-in-law tells the child that his actions were hurtful. Kids at the age of three begin to develop a rudimentary awareness that others have wants and feelings, too. Let them know that saying "I'm sorry" or "I apologize," even if it doesn't always undo the harm caused, makes a big difference to whoever was offended.
3. Taking Turns
Your two kids are playing with each other, when they accidentally break your favorite flower vase. Both run to you, yelling loud and fast, and placing blame on the other. You:
a. Become irritated with the bickering and leave.
b. Calmly tell them to stop talking at the same time. You ask one of them to speak first and ask the other to wait for his turn.
c. Punish them both immediately. They can explain later.
Answer: B
Waiting for one's turn is the general rule for a well-mannered person. Teach your children that speaking at the same time doesn't allow any of them to be heard. If they want to be heard, they have to learn how to listen and wait patiently for their turn to speak.
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Keeping Baby Safe: Injury Prevention Skills for Today's Families (2008)
Amazon Price: (as of 12/11/2009)
Injuries are the leading cause of death and life-long disability in children. The good news is, almost all of these injuries are preventable. Based on the American Academy of Pediatrics' injury prevention information for parents, this award winning two DVD set of helpful programs will show you how to prevent injuries to your child. For parents of children from birth to 2 years old.
Disc 1- Auto Safety: Keeping your baby safe in and around the car includes step-by-step video demonstrations of:
* Choosing the correct child safety seat based on the age of your child.
* Installing the safety seat into the car.
* Securing your child into the safety seat.
* Vehicle safety issues important to parents of young children.
Disc 2 - Home Safety: Keeping your baby safe in and around the home includes:
* Strategies for preventing common injuries at home from falls, poisoning, burns and scalds, suffocation and choking, and drowning.
* Information on preventing home fires.
* Information on outdoor play equipment safety, bicycle safety, and safe handling and storage of handguns.
* Special section on key safety topics by developmental stage of your child.
What's more important than the safety of your family? These DVDs will give you practical ways to prevent injuries to your child at home and in the car.
Awards: 2 Silver Telly Awards (2008) 2 Bronze Telly Awards (2008)
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