Actor Hill Harper said, “Fundamentally, we all want the same thing. We want to love. We want to be loved, and we want to matter.”
While this quote is undeniably true, the most important person in the world that we must love first is ourselves. From a young age children are bombarded with messages of self-hate. Diet and weight loss commercials, excessively photoshopped men and women on magazine covers, bullying in school and online, and even the words they hear the adults in their lives say around them. Is it any wonder that children today are afflicted with low self-esteem and a lack of confidence?
What we must do is teach our children the importance of loving themselves. In fact, self-love is one of best gifts parents can give to their children. But how can you help your children learn self-love? Hopefully this post will help you answer that question.
Teaching Self-Love Begins With You
The best way to teach your children self-love, is by modeling it for them. They’re soaking in the knowledge and mimicking behavior. Therefore, if you’re walking around all day belittling yourself, you’re teaching your children but that is the behavior they should embody. They should belittle themselves just as you do to yourself.
Not only should you watch the words you say to yourself, you should be careful about how you treat yourself as well. If you’re constantly self-sacrificing, not getting enough sleep, doing things you don’t want to do on behalf of others, and never taking care of yourself – this sends a strong message to your children that their needs must always come last. This can have a deep impact on them well into adulthood.
Give your children choices, and encourage them to make their own decisions.
Another great way to instill self-love in your children, is to not make every decision for them. By letting them decide, they will learn what they like, and speak up for what they want. You’re teaching them that their choices matter. When a child is given the power to choose, it helps them to be more confident, and find out exactly what they want and believe in.
Don’t do everything for them.
It’s tempting to want to do everything for your children. Instead, it’s important to try and let them do things on their own. For example, as early as possible allow your child to pick their clothes and dress themselves. If you fear giving them full rein, at least let them pick between several options you’ve set out for them. As they learn to accomplish tasks on their own, they will believe in themselves more, and feel independence which will help them grow into confident teenagers and ultimately adults.
We also must let them fail, and then encourage them to try again. Once a child makes a mistake, you must be careful how you handle it. Instead of berating the child for the failure, try to make sure they know that no human is perfect, and even adults make mistakes. An important reason not to berate a child for every misstep, is it can lead to them not wanting to try anymore to do new things, for fear of failing at them.
Bottom line, be mindful of your words and actions
Children are watching and learning from the people around them all the time. Model self-love in yourself. Tell your children you love them. Let them make their own decisions, and help them up when they fall. Though there are probably many more things you can do to teach self-love to your children, using these ideas is a great start.