The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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Viana.

Yes, it is Deanna.

And you have a question on children and self esteem.
Yes.

What's the question?

I'm doing a senior project paper in high school right now. And it was on self esteem for young children, how important it is. I was just wondering if you could give me a little information on how that can be important.

Well, think of it in your own life, the method that you use to figure out how whether self esteem is important or not, is to think about in your own life when you felt most confident, most grounded, whether it was there a hobby or something that you did well, and you felt really good about it.

Oh, is that a question?

Yeah. For you when you were really young.

Yeah, I did. I had jump ropeing contests. And that was my most memorable thing to do. Yeah. How old were you then? I was 10, 10 years old.

And you were good at it?

Yeah, really good at it.

Yeah. Tell me a little more. Did you practice?

Yeah, I jumped out every day at school at home, got into competitions in elementary school.

And was it like, fancy things that you would do with a jump rope rather than just jumping?

Yeah, it was it was fancy. I did double shooting with my friends. And we ended up doing competitions in elementary school, and we were definitely places in elementary schools in Lancaster.

Now can you feel just bringing back that memory to yourself in childhood? What emotion are you feeling?

Now? I'm pretty proud that I actually did that into when I was 10 years old.

So notice when you use your mind, well, instead of just wishing or praying to win the competition, you practice you put in effort you learned skills that I will never learn on a jump rope, right?

Yeah.

So you put in mental effort, and you got rewarded for it. And so self esteem is mind, mind esteem, it's learning how to use your mind well to think clearly and rationally and setting good goals for yourself longer range so you can achieve your own happiness. So it starts in childhood. Children need not to have a critical parent always breathing over their shoulder telling them that they're wrong with everything they do, or it's not quite good enough. You know how phony it is when Oh, my daughter's graduating from kindergarten, how exciting. And what's so exciting about that, you know, you make a big deal about nothing. And but if a child, if you give a child opportunities to, to think clearly and act well, whether it's learning a new skill, like ice skating, or jump roping, or whether it's learning math, or learning how to read if you're a parent to help make learning fun and using their mind fun, not to try to confine their mind, then that's very important, but I'm not sure if that's the angle that you're you're coming from. So it's absolutely important in in childhood, not faked self esteem, not patting them on the back and saying, Oh, you're a wonderful child, and the kids will say, well, the kid the child might say, Viana Well, what do you love about me? Oh, everything. I just love you because you're you. And that I mean, if you were dating a guy and you said what do you love about me? And he goes, Oh, just everything. How does that make you feel? Oh, maybe you know, he's like giving me certain details. On what everything do you like about me? Like my eyes? He likes my hair. You like my personality?

Exactly.

And doesn't it make a difference if the guy said different what I love about you Vianna is that I love the shape of your hands. Now, does that make you swoon if he said to what I love about you, is when you were in school, when you're in school, you work real hard. And you do well. You use your mind well or what I love about you is you were really nice to your friends you were you were thoughtful. Yeah, now that it feels like he gets you. It really really does. So it would go with us right so if it's grounded in reality if his compliments if it's grounded in reality, that's wonderful. You want but self esteem is not something other people can give you.

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But self esteem is not something other people can give you. People can be real mean to you, and you can still love yourself. Have self have confidence in your own mind.

Yeah, well, I have another question.

Yeah, go ahead.

What are some of the effects if young children grew up? I mean, I'm talking about the age of five, grow up, and they don't have that self esteem, they end up start, they end up feeling cheating, lying.

They become anorexia, anorexia, bulimia, is that some of the stuff that can happen? Is that true? If children if if parents don't know how to help children use their minds, well, giving them opportunities. Let's say the parents do everything for the kids. And the kids just feel like they're, I don't know, birds in a cage who don't do much you can fly around a little bit, but you can't really do much it then the kid and if the kids make bad choices, and they know better, such as cheating, lying in eating, than when they're alone with themselves in private, and reflecting on their own behavior, the lying, the cheating, the stealing the induced vomiting and bulimia or something, I think feel good about the way they are leading their lives and making their choices. They're not going to feel good about themselves. Right?

No.

So that so so what, what is the question is what you're wanting to know, is it true, if it's something that can happen if a child is, you know, kept like in a bird cage or, or something, and they don't have, they don't have that space to express themselves?

Okay, or the parents that parents can?

Yeah, parents can make life very difficult for a child. But even from some of the most difficult homes, a child can hold their own, I worked with highly abused children. And some of them were very damaged by the age of five. But some children who are in horrific households where this beat the beating and whipping and you name it, I don't want to go where else it went. But it was awful. But But these children were fighters they chose to think and they chose to evaluate their parents as bad weather abusing persons in their lives as bad rather than to say, Oh, I'm a bad person. So if the kids can keep a clear head, nobody can force them to think otherwise they can. environment can make life much more difficult for a child to grasp a rational world. But it can't remove it completely. A child can still use his or her young mind and say no, my parents were wrong, I want to get out of that household. And that's phenomenal. So self esteem is it boils down to something that a person earns by choosing to engage their mind, put in the effort, and think and even if you don't have self esteem, that means you can earn it for yourself later on in life too. With Africa. Yeah. So I hope that helps. Listen, we're right at the end of time right now.

Okay, so thank you so much.

You sound real sweet. And I hope that the report goes real well for you the senior project.

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