Does My Child Have Low Self-Esteem?

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Why should I be concerned?

Much of the emotional, social and physical well-being of our children are directly related to having the proper self-esteem. Much of the troubles they develop in friendships, body-image and friendships in the later years, as well as their ability to grow and thrive, are directly related to the way they see themselves.

Carl Rogers, a famous psychologist, made a statement about the human being that really woke me up to how important it is to create high self-esteem in our children. He said, “We want to feel and behave in ways that are consistent with our own self-image.” If our child’s self-image is that they are worthless and not good at basic skills such as listening and school work, then it is no wonder why their behaviour fits their paradigm.

If we make our children feel that they’re not smart, then they’ll probably act that way—more so. If they feel that they’re incapable of doing things or untrustworthy, they’ll mostly likely act out those things. We know we don’t like to say those things to our children, but in a moment of anger or disappointment, it could slip out of our mouth. It’s very important to keep track of what we are saying in all states of our emotion and pay attention to how they may impact our children long-term.

Laying the foundation

Self-worth is key to our child’s development since it’s consistent with our belief that the mothers are the first school. Everything stems from us originally, although obviously we’re not responsible for every thing. I cannot emphasize enough that we must make sure we’re doing everything possible to support the emotional health of our child. We may not realize the weight that our words and our actions have on our children in the short and long term.

But HOW do we identify if our child has low or high self-esteem and WHAT do I do if I realize my child has it?

Signs of high self-esteem

Some common signs that your child has high self-esteem or some goals to reach toward are if:

But, what if a child is not like that? There are signs that a child has low self-esteem. I will talk about how that looks like to help you be able to identify, like I was able to identify, whether or not my children had low self-esteem.

How can we know if our child has low self-esteem?

We can’t fix things unless we first identify what situation we are dealing with. So here are helpful and healthy tips that I want to share with you—that I’ve read back in the day, and it helped me to get a gage on where my children were.

A child with low self-esteem will:

1. Avoid challenges

2. Withdraw from others

3. Make negative statements about themselves

4. Like to think a lot that they can’t do things

5. Give up easily

6. Be overly sensitive to the opinions of others

There are other things that could play a role in this—other than just us, as parents. Some things could be childhood experiences, family relationships inside or outside the home, school environment, and outside social relationships. Some we have more control of than others, but for the most part, these are some of the things that can help us identify if our child has trouble with self-esteem.

Let’s talk love and solutions!

Conditional vs Unconditional Love

The Qur’an speaks a lot about unconditional and conditional regard. In a nutshell, unconditional love and emotional health go hand in hand. But sometimes, unintentionally, we are not showing unconditional love—we’re showing conditional love instead. This is something that could potentially be damaging and that’s why this topic is so important. I understand there are so many great moms out there that always want to do the right thing, but sometimes we’re just so used to some things that society taught us that we’re not aware we’re doing things that are harmful. How?

Shaming them into good behavior

A perfect example of this is shaming. We shame a child into good behavior. In Western cultures this is so common that we do it without thinking twice. For instance we shame a child until they get better grades, or we’d call them stupid and other things just to motivate them to get better grades. Or, maybe we call a child fat with the hopes that if they hear it enough times, they’ll do certain things to become skinny. Obviously, these aren’t words any of us would like to use. I personally do not use these, but I have definitely heard them in our community. And they are not consistent with the Sunnah or the Islam upbringing we were taught.

Conditional love doesn’t work

Us making our children feel that our love is conditional to their good behavior really has to stop. If we’re truly committed to raising emotionally healthy children, we have to let go of our often unconscious bad habits.

The Prophet PBUH is our model

It is possible, by the way, for unconditional love and correction to coexist. That’s something really hard for us to digest because that’s not what we were taught. We just have to have the right boundaries and show love and empathy while still having these boundaries. In fact, the Prophet—peace be upon him, did just that. He was the best example of this. He did not yell at children or make them feel disrespected or small. Children who loved him generally did so not because of his position. Children don’t understand the brevity of positions, but they understand when they’re treated right and when they’re loved and respected. He actually really showed great love and respect to children.

How to build their self esteem

I want to share some suggestions on how we can build the self-esteem of our children and show unconditional love in a way that is consistent with the Sunnah.

1) Ensure that your expectations of your child match their ability according to the developmental stage that they’re in.

There are tons of public info on the stages of development of children. So, just make sure first of all that our expectations are not too high or too low. Know that each child is unique and that there is no cookie cutter approach to what your child needs.

2) Withhold words of negative criticism.

Never over generalize, such as “You always do this or you’re such a…”
And again we hate to admit that these are things we say, but sometimes it
happens in fits of stress or anger. Replace these with power words instead,
such as “I really like what you did or
said,” etc. This is also when you might want to correct the child and say,
“I really love the way you _________. It would even be better if you _______.“

Another suggested way to correct the child is,
“I know you meant to do the right
thing. How do you think that you can fix this? Let’s work on it together.“

3) Make sure to give our children our undivided attention

These days it’s really hard to be device-free. Our phones are almost extensions or like third limbs at this point, but really giving a child undivided attention or not is critical to their emotional development. We don’t always realize it, but try to put those devices down when we’re around our kids. 5 or 10 minutes of undivided attention a day means a lot to them. We don’t want them to always see our face glued to something. We have to try to think about what that looks like from a child’s perspective, looking up at their mom all the time like that and not connected to them as a child.

4) When your child speaks, meet them at their level.

This is something that the Prophet—peace be upon him, actually did. He’d get down to his knee, get to their level and give them full attention. I think that should make sense in terms of them not always having to look up to us like we’re some huge overbearing authoritative figure.

5) Use positive body language.

This includes leaning in close, rubbing on their arm (obviously appropriate ways only), having eye contact, and smiling. We have to show to the child that we’re engaged and excited to have them in our presence.

6) Show your child that you’re happy when they come into the room.

Don’t show you’re annoyed or stressed out by them being close to you. This is probably the hardest for moms in the kitchen and other things that are hard for our children to be around, such as hot items. But we have to pay attention to how we shoo them out. Other than safety concerns in general, we have to show that we love that they’re around us, and not bothered by their presence. This is a huge one and something that many parents don’t realize that they do.

7) Create a home that allows our children to feel that they’re able to express their opinion and will not be judged.

I believe that goes without saying and should be a given in our homes.

8) Talk to our spouses about the importance of building self-esteem.

It’s important that both parents are on the same page with having healthier emotional health. For a child to reach their full potential, they have to have good emotional health, and that starts with us.

I pray that these signs and suggestions were of great help to you. And, I pray that all of us are able to work on this and work on ourselves in a way that we can really set our children up for success from the beginning. It all starts in our home.

Please don’t hesitate to message me for further information on this topic. Also, please tune in to my Mindful Muslimah Speaks Podcast and YouTube channel for further parenting tips.

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