Self-esteem for learning is a self-confidence you have about what you know, what you have learned, and what you are willing to learn, irrespective of what others think.
Parenting Styles: Effects on Children’s Study Habits
I remembered during my industrial training, I asked a certain corp member a question and he was like, how can you say you don’t know that.
I honestly told him I don’t know and if I did I wouldn’t be undergoing industrial training. Funny enough he didn’t explain that concept. But for a few minutes, I felt bad that he made me feel I was supposed to know that and mocked me.
Well, I just told myself that he doesn’t know it😁, if not why won’t he explain after all.
I walked up to the Quality Control manager and asked for clarification.
The root of most unhealthy self-esteem stems from learning. How well a child does something or how a child is unable to get something done gives a level of confidence..
An unhealthy self esteem towards learning is one of the greatest deprivation of knowledge. To say the least, self-esteem for learning is first developed at home.
How to know if you are instilling an unhealthy Self Esteem for Learning in your Child.
- If you don’t believe in what your child can do or is willing to do. Then, you are creating an unhealthy self-esteem in such a child.
- Helping your child at all times because you don’t want him to feel stressed. This causes unhealthy learning self-esteem.
- When you always yell at your child for not getting great grades, especially for a child who has put in effort, do much effort.
- When you constantly compare your child’s academic grades with siblings and friends.
- Focusing on subject matters that are of interest to you than the subject your child has strength for. For instance: A parent loves Mathematics and wishes that his child becomes an Engineer. But the said child has great passion for Fine and Applied art. You stress more on your child’s challenges rather than build on his strength.
- When you constantly blame your child’s teacher, for your child’s learning challenges. Children understand when their teachers go an extra mile to get them to learn. Since they aren’t able to tell you as parents, how far their teachers go, they bottle it up and start feeling withdrawn in class.
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Children who are not allowed to think for themselves, develop unhealthy academic self esteem.
Strategies to Develop Children’s self esteem for Learning
Understand that your child’s ability to learn is your responsibility. What you say to your child, give him or her a definition and picture of who he sees himself to be. Developing children”s academic self esteem is helping your child gain a positive and healthy picture of himself.
These can be achieved in the following ways;
Observe to Celebrate
Children with low self-esteem think of themselves as incapable, they constantly criticize themselves. This is the case because they have been constantly criticized by friends, family, teachers and others. In order to pull them out of this, they need to hear something else. Something different from criticism. Observe them every step they make and celebrate their attempts, efforts and process.
Avoid Over Criticism
Most feedback with so much makes children with low self-esteem withdrawn. For instance, if a child had a poor grade, instead of criticizing the grade, take your time to go through the work done. Let the child know specifically what to improve upon. If the introductory part of the work was done accurately, you can say
Your introduction to the essay was great. However, you need to improve upon each topic sentence in every paragraph.
When you devote time to specific weakness and celebrate strength, you are creating room for growth.
Look out for their strength
Identifying children’s strength and work on them is one way of developing academic self-esteem. Children with low self esteem have challenges with identifying the areas they perform well at. This is due to the attention they pay on the strength of their peers.
Help your child list and identify what they love to do. It can be so difficult because they haven’t spent time thinking of their self worth. So helping them get a list of what you have observed they have done so well. After identifying these strengths, show them how they can work more to enhance them.
Encourage and support them in Mistakes
Research has it that children with low self esteem are scared of making mistakes. They do not make an attempt because they are afraid to fail. While children with high self esteem focus on growth and improvement. It’s your duty as parents to encourage children to give things a try, let them know that failure isn’t final. It is okay to fail but it isn’t okay to stop seeking growth and improvement.
Ways to give children opportunity to try
1)Allow them to take responsibility. Their ability to respond to abilities.
2)Let them discover their own interests.
Set Actualizable Target
Having more than one child, invariably means you have children with different needs. To develop your child’s academic self-esteem, set tasks relevant to his or her area of strength. Let the child explain to you how he or she intends to get the task done. Praise the explanation given and allow the child to work independently.
Effective Ways to Develop Independent Learning Skills in Children
Allow your child to perform homework tasks independently
Ask if you can help when you observe your child is at a fix. Allow the child to give the work a work.
Avoid the urge to help out in everything.
Doing everything for your child, tends to lack responsibility. Your child isn’t scared to fail, you are the one instilling fear. A child who is scared of mistakes will never be innovative. Constantly doing everything for your child makes the child less of himself or herself. The subconscious mind tells the child that he or she can’t do it. That is why mummy and daddy help out.
To develop a healthy academic self esteem in your child, don’t be in a haste to help your child. Too much support for a child produces a demanding child.
Avoid Comparison
Every child is unique. Each child has individual needs. Focus on meeting the academic needs of your child and avoid telling such children what others are able to do. Children are faced with different learning disabilities, develop your child’s learning ability based on the learning styles that works for him or her.