How to Teach Children to Have Self-love
Teaching children to have self-love is a process that develops slowly, but can begin from childhood. It’s a quality that can help children perform better in school, at home, and in personal relationships.
Self-esteem in children begins to develop in the first years of life. In this sense, parents are the most influential people in childhood and play a critical role in their development.
Your words of encouragement can help develop their confidence, especially when they refer to a child’s specific efforts or abilities.
Having a positive sense of self is one of the best gifts that can be given to children. At the same time, children with self-love need a positive and realistic perception of their abilities. Therefore, it’s very important to work on this as early as possible.
We’ve prepared a list of the best ways to teach children to build a positive self-image. Don’t hesitate to put them into practice!
Ways to teach children to have self-love
1. Encourage them to play sports
The first way to teach children to have self-love is to encourage them to participate in sports or other physical activities. Sports help children increase and build their confidence, as it allows them to set objectives, improve their skills, and achieve their goals.
Among other benefits, playing sports helps them recognize their strengths and accept their weaknesses.
Overcoming adversity in sports is also an effective way to build confidence. If that isn’t enough, children who play sports will stay in shape and learn to take care of their bodies, which is always very positive and promotes self-love.
2. Talk to them and lead by example
Talking with your children about their learning is a good thing. In fact, it’s advisable to talk about any problems or difficulties that they discover they need to work on with greater intensity to overcome.
It’s good that your children hear you talk about how you value their own strengths while recognizing their weaknesses. Solving problems fosters self-love, so you should make them see that there are always positive points.
In this stage, you must also lead by example. You should love yourself before you can teach your children to have self-love. You can model this behavior by rewarding and praising yourself when you do things right.
Moreover, you can also share your strengths and weaknesses with your children and tell them what you do to overcome the most challenging situations.
Teach them that all people need to work to overcome adversity. It’s the best learning experience they can get.
“Parents are the most influential people in childhood and play a critical role in the development of their children. Your words of encouragement can help develop their confidence”
3. Don’t criticize
Criticisms that children hear about themselves from other people directly impact how they feel about themselves. In fact, negative words are always harmful and demotivating. When children hear negative messages about themselves, this directly affects their self- love.
Therefore, if you want to correct some of your children’s attitudes, you should do it with patience and focus on what you want them to do next time. Ideally, you should concentrate on their strengths and pay attention to what they do well in order to give it value.
Be more mindful of their strengths than weaknesses if you want to help your children feel good about themselves.
4. Learn new things
Finally, you must bear in mind that learning new things is one of the best ideas to promote self-love in children. Considering that they love to learn and that the options are unlimited, it’s a good way to strengthen their self-esteem.
Even during childhood, learning to hold a cup or take their first steps generates a sense of mastery and unmatched achievement.
For this reason, children must learn new things as they get older, like getting dressed, reading, or riding a bicycle. Generally, any opportunity to acquire concepts and skills is a good moment for their self-love to grow.
We recommend that if you teach children to do things, you should always help them at the beginning. After that, it will be time for them to try on their own, make mistakes, learn, and feel proud. The challenges must always be at their level.
Lastly, don’t forget that teaching children to have self-love is possible if you follow these tips and practice an affectionate upbringing.
Remember that your role as a parent is very important. Your words of support are necessary to ensure the child’s proper development.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Macías Quintero, M. A. (2019). Yo soy el dueño de mi receta: libro de autoconocimiento y amor propio (Bachelor’s thesis, Uniandes). https://repositorio.uniandes.edu.co/handle/1992/45040
- Laporte, D. (2006). Autoimagen, autoestima y socialización: guía práctica con niños de 0 a 6 años (Vol. 58). Narcea Ediciones.