From an interesting article in The Atlantic:
What should parents do to foster healthy self-esteem in their kids? We should stop obsessing over the concept, because it is probably not the be-all and end-all that we think it is. According to Cho, research has shown, for instance, that many East Asian children score low on traditional self-esteem measures, but that they rarely suffer from psychological problems or do poorly in school as a result. This suggests that “self-esteem is just one thing in a myriad of practices that parents can engage in that could help children thrive,” Cho said. We’re not going to ruin our kids by not focusing on it—and we might even help them, given that our approaches for boosting self-esteem are often counterproductive.
We should also be careful about showering our children with indiscriminate praise. Instead, we should be more honest in our appraisals—not by shaming kids or putting them down, but by giving them feedback that is commensurate with their effort. Tell your kid that you like their off-key singing, but don’t tell them it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard. When we praise our kids, we should encourage their efforts, rather than celebrate them for their achievements, abilities, or smarts. And we should let them experience hardships. When kids face adversity and get through it, they learn that they are loved unconditionally and that failure is not a sign of ineptitude, but an opportunity to learn, grow, and come to believe in themselves.
In an earlier paragraph:
Healthy self-esteem cannot be universally essential for another reason too: It is largely an American construct. Many other countries, including Japan and China, do not give self-esteem much, if any, consideration (some languages don’t even have a word for it). “Even in very modern societies, cultures that we think are very similar to ours don’t necessarily view self-esteem with the same set of ideals that we do,” Cho told me.
There is nothing tricky about it. Self-esteem was always a stupid concept. Baumeister et al demolished the idea at the turn of the century.
ReplyDeleteMany symbolic efforts to help indigenous people are attempts to raise their self-esteem, as if somehow that will improve their behavior. Hasn't worked at all but then I wouldn't expect indigenous activists to have a clue about changing human behavior.