How to raise a strong child? These three points parents must know!

What is the ultimate goal of raising a child?

Everyone may have different answers, but making your child strong inside must be one of them.

A child with a strong heart can better adapt to the environment, meet challenges, cope with setbacks, and get out of life's adversity.

We can't be with our children all the time, and we can't help them solve all the problems they encounter in life.

The ultimate goal of parent-child relationship is separation, which is to let the child go to independence, so having a "big heart" is the focus of our children.

What is inner strength?

I think it's about thinking of yourself as a valuable person at any given time.

In recent years, some children in the news have often chosen to live lightly because of quarrels with parents and scolding by teachers. What I want them to be unable to bear, in addition to these blames, is more of a lack of value in their hearts.

In developmental psychology, people evaluate their own characteristics and thus make a determination of the value of their own existence as "self-esteem".

One thing to note is that the self-esteem here is not the same as the self-esteem we usually talk about. In daily life, when we mention this word, most of them express "face".

And self-esteem in developmental psychology, you can understand it as a person's evaluation of one's personality, appearance, emotional intelligence, IQ, and all other self-related traits.

One study of adolescents found that young people with high self-esteem were more optimistic, less depressed, and had better academic performance.

Another study in New Zealand found that people with low self-esteem have worse physical and mental health, worse economic prospects, and more crime.

People with high self-esteem rate themselves better, more confidently, more able to adapt to the environment and overcome difficulties.

People with low self-esteem tend to evaluate themselves negatively, have poor environmental adaptability, and are easily knocked down by difficulties.

How does self-esteem develop?

According to studies, around the age of 4-5, children have built up a sense of meaningful self-esteem.

But in the age group of 4-7 years old, most children will be "overconfident.". They feel like they're good in every way, yes, just so ordinary and confident.

After the age of 8, their evaluation of their abilities begins to slowly approach that of others.

In adolescence, the child's self-esteem will change in various relationships, such as parents, classmates, teachers, the opposite sex, etc., for example, a child who gets along well with his parents will show high self-esteem in the relationship with his parents, but if he is not liked by his classmates, he will show low self-esteem in front of his classmates.

Among them, girls' self-esteem level in adolescence will be lower, because they are more dissatisfied with their appearance and figure, care about the evaluation of others, and are more likely to rub with family members for trivial matters.

For the vast majority of normal people, in adulthood, self-esteem will develop to the highest level, and then slowly decline with the arrival of old age.

How to raise children with high self-esteem?

Self-esteem is so important to a person's development, how can parents help their children build high self-esteem in their daily lives?

1. Parenting style of parents.

I've met a lot of people in my life who feel that their lack of confidence comes from their parents' long-term negative evaluations of them.

I saw such a post on Zhihu: a girl and a friend were eating in a restaurant, accidentally broke a dish, and then her brain went blank, crying while constantly apologizing to friends and waiters. Friends later reassured her for a long time before she recovered.

Why is that? Because at that moment, she recalled countless times when she did something wrong and was endlessly insulted by her mother, and recalled herself who was weak and helpless but powerless to resist.

You can't deny that a person's opinion of themselves will inevitably be branded by their parents' evaluations.

Studies have shown that adopting a gentle, supportive, and encouraging parenting style is more conducive to raising children with high self-esteem.

In such an environment, the child is able to feel that he is liked and valuable, and thus develops self-esteem.

On the other hand, such a parenting style can establish a good parent-child relationship, and a good parent-child relationship can nourish the child's life and make the child more confident and resilient.

2. Correctly guide the child's desire to win or lose.

Another important factor in self-esteem is comparison with peers.

After the age of 3, the competition between children has increased, and everything must compete for the first place. When I was in class, there were often children who quarreled over the first chair and the first sandbag.

Too much comparison will damage the enthusiasm of children, not only children will compare with each other, parents will also compare with each other. Some parents will even convey to their children the belief that "you are the best, you have to take the first in everything, and you are my good child when you take the first".

Under such pressure, how can children learn to treat success and failure correctly?

Therefore, parents and teachers should create a "non-competitive" environment for children, that is, in this environment, we only compare ourselves, and it is successful to improve than ourselves, without comparing children with each other, nor mentioning other people's children.

At the same time, we must teach children to accept failure, and we must tell children that failure is also a part of life.

Failure is only an experience, not a label. Being able to absorb from mistakes and eat a long and wise one is the best mentality for dealing with failure.

3. Cultivate children's sense of ability.

On the other hand, even if parents and teachers provide a non-competitive environment, children will still compare with each other. Therefore, in sports, learning, social interactions, etc., parents should consciously create opportunities to exercise their sense of ability, and do not do everything for them.

A particularly important point is that in the process of exercise, let children experience the feeling of success in doing a thing.

It is said that failure is the mother of success, but I think success is success, a person who has experienced the process of hard work - success, will be more eager to succeed, but also more willing to work hard.

Doing these three things in daily life can make children have a good level of self-esteem, self-confidence and tenacity, not afraid of setbacks, and encourage parents.