Behavioral Patterns That Threatens Children’s Self-Esteem

“I’m shy,” “It’s hard for me to say no,” “I’m afraid to speak to an audience…” To get rid of the painful feeling of inferiority, you need to understand where this uncertainty came from.

The self-confidence, excessive shyness, as a rule, are rooted in childhood. Parents have a huge influence on the child’s sense of self. They become a kind of mirror that praises, reflecting a beautiful picture, and criticizes, or revealing flaws. The way our parents and other adults “reflect” us is imprinted on our psyche and affects the formation of our perceptions of ourselves. Understanding how parents have influenced the development of each of us in terms of self-confidence or shyness is the first step in restoring self-esteem.

Uncertainty can be a defining characteristic of a person, but most often it manifests itself only in certain aspects of life. You are a confident professional, but you have problems in communicating with friends and in building close relationships … You are coping well with the tasks that the bosses give you, but lose ground when it comes to raising the question of raising wages … Try to define as accurately as possible those areas of your life that were affected by your uncertainty. This will help you to better understand where the problem lies.

Uncertainty is always a product of a person’s personal history

We are not born shy, too timid or anxious, we acquire these traits throughout our lives, facing different situations and people, and some experiences. Our relationships with parents and other adults are key to developing a sense of self-confidence or not. Do not completely shift the responsibility for your own neuroses and psychological problems to parents. However, there are several behavioral patterns that have the potential to threaten the child’s self-esteem.

Parents Dream Passing It To Their Children

“How clumsy you are!” – says the mother of her five-year-old daughter, angry at the happy, chubby child. The mother once dreamed of becoming a ballerina, but it did not work out, and now she comforts herself with the hope that at least her daughter will become the next famous ballerina.

Parents sometimes cannot resist and throw their dreams of success, happiness or wealth onto their children: where they fail, their children will succeed. Dreams in themselves have nothing wrong with them. However, often the wishes of the child are not taken into account at all. Parents see him only as a future “champion”, a better version of himself and are not ready to accept him as he is. At this point in the child’s mind, a grain of doubt arises: “Am I good enough? What do I need to do to be loved if just being myself isn’t enough?

Little later parents realize that their dreams are not destined to come true. Instead of understanding themselves, they see the cause of frustration in an imperfect child. As a result, the children become insecure and feel guilty and ashamed for not meeting their parents’ expectations. Subsequently, these feelings can manifest themselves in any aspect of life – at work, in friendship, in personal life, in the person’s attitude towards his or her own body.

Perhaps now you are still trying to be a success story for your parents. Try to separate the desires of parents from their own and take the first step towards what they have dreamed of since childhood.

Looking Support In Difficult Situations

“My father always told me that I would succeed in everything,”. Only now do I realize that it was a form of rejection of my difficulties. My father had financial problems then, and he didn’t want to worry about me, too. Now I have a little daughter growing up on my own, and I don’t want to make any mistakes. In order for her to grow up confident, I need to be very attentive to the slightest signs of shyness, such as inability to make friends or fear of verbal answers at school. Often parents, absorbed in their own problems, may not notice that the child has difficulties.

Growing up, these people suffer from a general lack of self-confidence: having no experience of support in anxious and difficult situations, they do not trust either themselves or the world. Their relationship with others is filled with fear of intimacy, distrust, and uncertainty that someone can take them seriously.

Try to start trusting others, at least in the smallest. Once you feel how salutary the support can be, it will be easier for you to overcome the uncertainty.

Finding The Courage To Risk

“We’re never gonna buy you a scooter, you’re gonna get in an accident.” For anxious parents, life is a constant danger. That’s why they tend to overprotect their children. This feeling of all-pervading anxiety is very contagious! If parents are constantly fighting imaginary dangers, their children are likely to learn this distrust of the world. The child starts to avoid any activity, especially those related to emotional or physical risks. As a result, the necessary social skills are simply not trained, and the person becomes insecure in himself or herself and in his or her own strength.

Anxiety can easily transform into fear of meeting new people or of being afraid of their superiors. The prohibitions and fears gained can also manifest themselves in areas of life that are not directly related to the original cause of anxiety, such as problems at work, in relationships with friends and with a loved one.

The world is not as dangerous as your parents have told you. You’ve probably wanted to try something for a long time, but you didn’t dare.

You Can Do More Than That

Maria’s parents have always had pessimistic views of life. They never let their daughter even dream of a prosperous and successful life. On the contrary, they suggested to her that “every cricket should know its socks”, “one should rejoice at the small and not demand more from life”. As an adult, Maria did not dare to enter the institute and leave her unsatisfying job.

Our inner perceptions force us to change, grow and look for ways to develop. But to build these ideas, we need parents who will encourage us to listen to our desires.

Parents have their own way of life. Perhaps in their young adulthood, changing jobs was indeed too much of a shock. But you don’t have to inherit their fears and uncertainty. You have a life of your own in which there are many opportunities to become happier.

Parent’s Ideals Maybe Out Of Line

“My daughter is completely unique. She is talented, intelligent and beautiful,” says her proud mother, introducing her daughter to her friends. And the little frightened girl wants only one thing at this moment: to fall through the ground! Excessive praise can harm children’s self-esteem as well as devaluing remarks. Praise and compliments do not allow the child to make their own vision of themselves and their potential. He has to compare his own vision of himself with the unattainable ideal drawn by the parent.

In adult life, a person will suffer from a sense of failure and devastation. After all, no matter how hard he tries, the ideals drawn by parents, are an unbearable burden.

Try to accept yourself imperfect. In the end, everyone has advantages and disadvantages.

Feel Free To Enjoy Your Luck

Unfortunately, there are parents who see their own children as rivals whose success could allegedly outshine their own. Usually, such people are too infantile themselves or have unresolved psychological problems.

A child’s mind registers such wishes of the parents and can react to them in different ways. Often the child develops psychosomatic illnesses. In this case, “running away” from illness can be a symbolic expression of a desire for safety that a child has never had before.

Another scenario – the child quickly enough understands that his parents are able to rejoice only in his failures … And what no matter what such a person does, he everywhere unconsciously will seek to fail: in work, education, family. Fears, prohibitions and anxieties received in childhood, will help him in this “succeed”.

Children’s and parents’ relationships play a key role in building a child’s self-confidence. It is important to remember that emotionally disadvantaged childhood, while it can be an obstacle to success, is not an insurmountable obstacle. When you were a child, the words and actions of your parents have had a huge impact on you, but that is no longer the case. You are an independent adult, you are able to create a happy future for yourself, and only you will be responsible for how it will turn out.

Don’t Blame Your Parents

“Fear… but do it! How to turn fear from an enemy into an ally” offers a way to gain self-confidence. We must accept that fear is an integral part of our lives, and to turn it into confidence is a task for each of us. “Gaining self-confidence begins when you can say, “I’m not going to blame my parents or classmates at school who hurt me. I’m going to take responsibility for my life here and now.”

In order to gain self-confidence, it is important to understand that everyone is inevitably faced with failures and failures. It is up to us to decide whether we can learn from this experience or fall into the abyss of self-denial and self-doubt.

None of the life lessons can be unequivocally negative. “Imagine that you are going to an interview and are not being hired. What’s next? You can blame yourself for not making a good enough impression, but you can look at the situation from a different angle. What lesson can you learn from this experience? Have you prepared well enough? Could you have done something differently to get this position? Was this job really the job you wanted? Look for meaning in what happened, not get depressed. If you let yourself fall into despondency, you will not take anything out of the situation.

Look For New Activities That Will Bring You Joy And Satisfaction

There is a perception that if a person is too dependent on work or relationships, he or she is not sure of himself or herself.

“When one thing you depend on crumbles, your life inevitably becomes empty. To maintain self-confidence, it is very important to make your life rich and rich in ideas and experiences.”

Start with what you get. This will give you confidence. Look for new activities that will bring you joy and satisfaction. Noticeably, you will find that your abilities no longer seem so limited to you, and you feel confident in your own abilities.