Helping Kids to Develop Self Esteem – Using Science

My friend Leon Seltzer posted a really great article over at Psychology Today.   It’s about helping kids to develop the best possible self-esteem.

It’s a really excellent article about humanistic parenting. The best part is that it is based in science! Here is a link to the article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolution-the-self/201608/how-raise-your-kids-high-and-healthy-self-esteem

To give you the highlights:

Let them see you struggle so they understand – struggle is normal and you can work through it.

Self esteem – is how they feel about themselves – for this – they need to be encouraged to think about who they want to be and how to be that person so that WHEN the slings and arrows are slung at them – they can take the hits knowing – they at least – are doing their best.

He concludes: “non-authentic parents are not going to breed authentic children. And for anyone to feel truly good about themselves requires the personal integrity to comfortably admit limitations and self-doubts.”  Amen Lee – amen.

When Your Self-Esteem is Attacked

While we all know that we shouldn’t pay attention to the things bullies say, protecting our self-esteem isn’t that easy when faced with someone who is dehumanizing and denigrating you.

Bullies put people down. It’s what they do.  Their reasons for doing this vary, but it basically has to do with power. They may be trying to hide their own insecurities by pointing out the flaws of others. Or they may simply be grooming someone for social exclusion.

When you are targeted by a bully it is hard not to take it personally. After all, you are being ostracized by a group when this happens and we feel ostracism as physical pain.

Plus, we all have our flaws and most of us are insecure about our flaws so when someone points it out we are only too willing to agree with them.  

Finally, if there weren’t something wrong with you, you wouldn’t be targeted, right?  Wrong. Even if there is nothing wrong with you, you might still get targeted. Often bullies just chose people out of convenience, not because of any dislike of the individual. Their methods of attack have to do with the most convenient ways to socially ostracize a person. It is rarely personal.

If you are being bullied, what are some of the ways to raise your self-esteem?  The first thing you should do is to learn how to get bullies to leave you alone. (See The Bully Vaccine book for information on how to do this).  If you can stop a bully from bullying you, you will feel empowered and will know that the bully is the person with the problem not you. It really does amazing things for your self-esteem.

Beyond that Psychology Central has several suggestions on what you can do. (see: http://psychcentral.com/lib/how-to-raise-your-self-esteem/)

One way is to slow down on personalizing what is happening. This is why you keep being told, this isn’t about you – it’s about the bully and their problems. The more you can feel sorry for the bully being so damaged they behave poorly, the less you will take their behavior, which is targeting you, personally.

Another way to help your self-esteem is to acknowledge your emotional reaction but choose your response. Yes, being told you are a horrible person hurts. But that doesn’t mean you have to retaliate or show that you are hurt. Choosing your response helps you to be strategic in your response (which is important when you are trying to get the behavior to stop).  It will also help you to appear more professional in the workplace. While the other person is acting like a school yard bully, you are a professional adult – that’s something you can and should feel proud of.

For more information on how to protect yourself and your children from bullies check out the Bully Vaccine Project website.

Self Esteem and Body Image

How to be more realistic about how you look.

We all have self-doubt and one of the areas we doubt is our body image. It doesn’t matter what we look like, it’s probably not the way we think we should look. Now, on the one hand, I’m all for self-improvement. On the other, it’s not ok to go overboard. As with everything, balance is needed.

My book The Humanist Approach to Happiness: Practical Wisdom, which is a book for tweens and teens to discuss with their parents, has a section on body image for both boys and girls. Taking a realistic view of what a body should look like.

I encourage girls to look at Renaissance era paintings to get a better idea of what a real woman’s body looks like or should look like – plump by today’s standards. With boys – I encourage them to look at film stars of the 30s. Buff but not ripped like today’s implanted surgically altered heros.

I also discuss what scientists know about physical attraction as well, since that is actually tied to scent (having to do with genetic compatibility). The overall message is that obsessing on your looks is counterproductive to your real goal which is to be attractive to others. To be attractive, you need to be nice and you need to smile on occasion.

Constructive Criticism

Learning how to take criticism constructively is important. How can managers adjust their approach to help their employees take criticism constructively even if the employee is “sensitive?”

Job success and satisfaction are tied together. By and large people want to do good and they feel good when they do. The problem is that all work requires learning and adjustments. The ability and willingness to correct mistakes is key. This is why constructive criticism is so important.

The problem is that the very real humans you are trying to give advice to have their own issues and their own insecurities. And these insecurities get in the way of people actually learning how to improve what they are doing.

So, in the spirit of Humanistic Leadership and business management, let’s talk about what the research shows us about best practices when it comes to constructive criticism.

The good news is that there are really just two main variables that impact how a person responds to criticism.

Self Esteem

The first is self-esteem. People with low self-esteem respond very poorly to criticism. In fact the more they fight it, the lower their self-esteem probably is. Managers can use this information by recognizing that in order to deliver constructive advice; they first have to provide some support to help shore up the self-esteem of the individual they are critiquing. You can do this by complimenting them on what they are doing right and then framing the advice as a way that they can improve even more and do even better and that you are confident in their ability to rise to the challenge.

Gender Differences

The second thing is that it turns out that men and women respond to criticism differently.  This basically means that how they defend themselves from the criticism differs. Men tend to express their feelings outward, in other words, the person critiquing them is the person with the problem. Women tend to internalize it by beating themselves up or taking the criticism as a personal attack. As a result, it is fairly easy to recognize men who have low self-esteem, they are the ones bashing and blaming everyone else for their mistakes.  Women, on the other hand are harder to recognize because the anger and frustration are directed inwards. This is a challenge for managers who will need to make an extra effort with female employees to ensure that bad feelings don’t start to fester and to find ways to assess HOW the advice was taken.

Ego

As for the rest of us – what is the advice to take criticism better? Let go of your ego. Your goal should be to do the best job you can and any criticism you receive regardless of why it is being given, should be viewed as an opportunity to learn and improve. If you are focused on your ultimate goal of being successful, you are more likely to use criticism to help you achieve your goals. 

What was the worst advice you ever received. What did you learn from it?

PS – this post was inspired by a press release sent out by Psychtests.com in case you were interested and is based on their research.  - http://testyourself.psychtests.com/testid/2129