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Does
your Child have Low Self-Esteem?
Self-esteem is an abstract concept
that is difficult to measure in terms of high and low. However, children
with low self-esteem display certain characteristics that can be pinpointed.
What follows is a checklist of statements that will help you identify the
warning signals so that you know if your child is suffering from low self-esteem.
All you have to do is to click 'yes'or 'no' depending on whether the statement
applies to your child or not.
A word of caution. This is merely
a guideline. Most children will exhibit some of these characteristics from
time to time, but this does not necessarily indicate that they have low
self-esteem.
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Your child has a tendency to daydream
and often makes up stories about herself and her life. She wishes she was
someone else and that her life was different. YES/NO.
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Your child is constantly running herself
down and making derogatory comments about herself. YES/NO.
-
Your child shrinks away from attention,
positive or negative. YES/NO.
-
Your child is lethargic. YES/NO.
-
She doubts her abilities. Thus, she
is afraid of accepting responsibility for anything. YES/NO.
-
She is very indecisive, as she has no
faith in her judgement. YES/NO.
-
She is extremely shy in front of strangers
and her peers, as she fears that she will not measure up to their standards.
YES/NO.
-
She bullies younger and weaker children
in a show of power. YES/NO.
-
She is attracted to authoritative, confident
people and subscribes to their views because she doesn't trust their own
judgement. YES/NO.
-
She is isolated from her peers because
she does not push herself forward to participate in games and avoids leadership
roles. YES/NO.
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She tends to be submissive and does
not assert herself. YES/NO.
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She seeks attention by boasting about
her possessions or plays the fool and disrupts other children's games.
YES/NO.
-
She has a short attention span and gets
frustrated easily when things don't go smoothly. YES/NO.
-
She is not comfortable in new situations
and becomes extremely anxious that she will not be able to cope. YES/NO.
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If she succeeds at something, she thinks
it's because she got lucky or that it was easy. She doesn't ascribe success
to her own abilities. YES/NO.
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If she fails, she inevitably thinks
that it is because of her lack of intelligence or ability. YES/NO.
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She does not like to work independently
and she is constantly asking people if she's doing things the right way.
YES/NO.
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She does not ask too many questions
out of the fear of being thought stupid. YES/NO.
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She rarely laughs or smiles because
she is too busy worrying about putting a foot wrong. YES/NO.
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She often says nasty things about her
peers. YES/NO.
Conclusion:
As mentioned before, measuring self-esteem is not as simple as taking temperature.
In other words, every statement on this scale does not have the same value.
If you have answered 'yes' to most statements, it is possible that your
child has a self-esteem problem. However, keep in mind how frequently your
child displays these characteristics and the severity of the behaviour.
All these statements will apply to all children at some point or the other.
They cannot all have low self-esteem.
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