Why Confidence Is Less in Some Children

Today’s lifestyle has given birth to children low self esteem.



Children who are healthy and happy, show good performance in school and at various tasks. They are aware that their parents, teachers and peers value their work and appreciate them. This builds their confidence and they feel positive about themselves.



They are confident and very active. But if certain children are not successful in their tasks and show poor performance in almost all the activities, they don’t get praises from their elders. They are repeatedly asked to improve their performance and parents may resort to physical punishment.



If after several attempts, they fail to do so, their confidence lessens. They are afraid to undertake any task and this goes on increasing as time goes by which gives birth to children with low self esteem. This may be carried forward when they grow into adults.

There are hereditary and genetic reasons for low self esteem in children.



Due to some deficiency or defect in the brain, children are unable to grasp verbal instructions. They can not perform multiple tasks and have difficulty in comprehending numbers and letters. They have lack of co-ordination in various activities although they might be quite intelligent.



In these cases, if parents do not correlate children and low self esteem or over expect in terms of performance, it frightens, frustrates and confuses them. They conclude that something is wrong with them and become highly insecure. When this situation occurs, children are at their lowest ebb with respect to their self esteem and it needs to be handled sensitively.

Children generally understand if they have done praiseworthy work or not and if they are over praised or ignored, they feel cheated.



The best course to take is to be truthful to them without being too discouraging. Children with low self esteem should be commended for doing good work and shown the right way in those tasks in which they fail. Unstable household, divorce of parents or violent surroundings are all responsible in instilling low self esteem in children. Positive home and school environment and sensible teaching are very important in building self esteem in children.