Today’s youth experience low self-esteem, low self-respect and immense insecurity.
Where does it come from?
The attitude emerges in childhood, within the family and support system.
These days, youth are disenchanted with their environments at home, school and even at play, so much so that they seek escape through suicide, drugs, gangs or by immersing themselves into the dark world of the internet and fantasy land of video games.
Today more than ever our youth are more at risk for being lured away by people who promise acceptance, love and recognition. Society, parents and loved ones must be prepared for losing their children if they do not take a serious look at how to reverse what is already happening and better still how to prevent loss of children.
In this article let us explore the parenting techniques for building self-esteem in childhood by first answering one question.
PARENTING TECHNIQUES FOR BUILDING SELF ESTEEM IN CHILDREN
Infants trust their parents 100%
We were all infants at the first stage of this life. Some of us are able to remember something of our infancy. Some remember moments of complete happiness, bliss and love. Others remember traumatic experiences of emotional or physical abuse. Whether we are able to remember or not, one thing is for certain, everything that we experienced has been recorded into our subconscious and unconscious mind, and destines our future.
As infants our world revolves around our mother one hundred percent. She is our nourishment, our source of comfort, warmth, and protection. “Mother” is the primary care-giver, whom ever it may be. For thousands of years, the primary “mother” has been the one who carried us in her womb, and out of whose loins we emerged from. In this article I focus on her, as it is a short article, but the “care-giver” can be anyone.
We trusted her one hundred percent, and waited to hear her voice, feel her heart beat, smell her presence and see her familiar face. We were one. Our infant pure being, sponged in all that she radiated to us in her thoughts and words and actions, as our minds were being conditioned to think, and our bodies were programmed to act. As we grew older both our parents were programming our brains and minds. We accepted it, because we trusted them one hundred percent.
Parents Program Children’s Minds
We learned that if we did certain things, our parents became happy or angry. We learned that we either beautiful or ugly. We learned that we were capable of anything or that we were unable to do things right. We learned that punishment was to be expected if our parents were not happy about what we did. We learned that our parents drink to relax. We learned that our parents smoke to relieve stress. We learned that our parents fight because they love each other. We learned that our parents deceive each other because they love each other.
We learned that criticism was normal. We learned that it was normal to yell, scream, sexually abuse or physically hurt people that we love. We learned all of this because it was what we were exposed to in our home, as we watched our parents enact their values, their personalities and their beliefs in front of us. We were children, our minds were programed. Our values and beliefs of how we were to live our own lives were set into motion. We began to mirror our parents.
Low Self-Esteem Sets In
As we ventured out into the world with our friends, we began to use the learned skills with them and those around us. We used criticism, abuse, alcohol, drugs, smokes, sexuality, bullying and all that we learned, as it began to pour out of our minds so naturally that we accepted it.
But in all of that as we began to mirror our parents, we began to be rejected. Our parents punished us for being like them. We became confused. We felt unhappy, drained, alone, unloved, unaccepted, rejected, and at a loss for how to really feel happy. As we grew older, and our minds began to expand, we began to question the values and beliefs of our parents and rebellion set in. We began to question our own state of being, feeling more rejected, more alone.
We poured ourselves into the world of the internet, behind closed doors as we found acceptance and love from words and sounds and images that flashed across the screen. We immersed ourselves into powerful roles of fantasy avatars through video games. We felt energized by atrocious acts that were streamed live on YouTube. We felt energized, felt powerful, felt like we mattered. All the while we were unaware that we were really crying out for inner strength, self-respect, and self-esteem.
The Impostor® Lower Mind Sets In
As we became further engaged in the world of the internet, sharing our pain and our distress through words and videos, on the other side of the keyboard, lurked the opportunistic dark force of the Impostor®. The negative force that poses as us but is taking us away from the natural beautiful Self that we really are.
Before we knew it, we were pouring out our hearts and our dreams to the Impostor® Savior until one fine day it spoke back, telling us that we could have unconditional love, that we could have acceptance, that we could be successful and that we could belong because we matter. We felt elated, saved, rescued.
All we needed to do was to escape from the situation at home and join the Impostor® mind. We left.
Parents Need To Rescue The Higher Mind of Children
In today’s rushed fast paced world that believes that the purpose of life is to direct children to educate themselves, excel at school, compete with their peers and gain degrees at reputed colleges so that they can join the race for career advancement, material possessions and buy happiness, we have realized that parents more than ever need to focus their purpose of life to that of guiding their infant to young adulthood.
The prime duty of a parent is to provide unconditional love, acceptance and respect of their child by mentoring their child. If parents fail at their basic role of parenting, then no amount of bribery, money, holidays, gifts, or expensive sports programs or extra-curricular activity will be able to prevent their children from being lost forever.
Parenting Techniques for Building Self-Esteem in Childhood
The human brain is built to learn by exposure to the environment. Highly specialized neurons are coded for imitation. “Monkey see monkey do,” is not just related to the animal kingdom. This fascinating code is highly effective in humans as a means of quickly learning profoundly complicated behaviors. Alas as parents fail to realize it, they unknowingly postulate: “Do n’t do as I do, do as I say!”
Children fearful of their parents are in the worst possible scenario, and at the highest risk for being lost. Youth mimic parental behavior right from infancy. Parents must live their lives with integrity, by truly practicing what they teach. Today, children routinely lie, because their watch their parents lie to each other, lie to friends, lie to their boss, lie to the neighbours…
Parents need to re-assess their own beliefs and lifestyles first. They need to readjust their thinking, words and actions. They need to change their behavior and thinking. Only when parents change will their children be saved from being lost forever.
Support for Parents, and Parents To Be
Strange as it may seem, there is no education system focused on the most important role of being a parent! We spend enormous amount of money to go to school and earn a degree to work in a company, but we do not educate ourselves about how to build our self-esteem, be happier humans, so that we in turn can be happy parents. We need to know seriously address the purpose of our lives. Of course it is a choice. The question is: “Do would-be parents want to really succeed at being parents?” The trend these days is to “out-source” many of the family tasks!
Truly Successful Parent?
As I discussed in the previous article, success at work is meaningless (Yoga Scientific Secrets For Stress Management https://drvie.com/yoga-scientific-secrets-for-stress-management/ )
if we are not successful at being human. We seem to have forgotten the amazing power of love and happiness that we are coded with. We have forgotten who we really are. We have forgotten the true purpose of life as we hold onto the false beliefs of systems, communities and even trusted sources.
I am providing a series of seminars for parents and parents to be to address this vital issue of how parents can be successful at parenthood and ensure that their children have self-esteem and self-respect. The role of parents is crucial to the future of humanity and needs to be focused on immediately else millions of children will be lost to the Impostor® Syndrome. Join my seminars on parenting techniques for building self-esteem in childhood. Do comment below and sign up for the events below.
I am here to support you in your journey in any way that I can.
Do contact me.
With lots of love,
Always,
Dr. Vie
Your Guide, Planet Earth, Our Great Cosmos
Author of Taming The Female Impostor® A Women’s Guide To Being her Powerful Self. https://drvie.com/tamingthefemaleimpostorsummary
Recent Articles By Dr.Vie:
Parenting Techniques For Building Self-Esteem In Childhood https://drvie.com/parenting-techniques-for-building-self-esteem-in-childhood/
Yoga Scientific Secrets For Stress Management https://drvie.com/yoga-scientific-secrets-for-stress-management/
For the Series on Yoga Self Realization
Introduction click here https://drvie.com/you-can-be-super-conscious/
Part 1 Click https://drvie.com/world-yoga-day-part-1/
Part 2 click here https://drvie.com/charleston-massacre-can-we-ever-be-super-conscious-part-2/
Part 3 click https://drvie.com/yoga-self-realization-part-3-2/
Very interesting. I am a single mom and my son is 8 years of age. How can I stop him from shouting and screaming? I work hard so he can have a better life. I am doing everything for him. Why is he not grateful. Thank you for your help Dr. Vie. From Nancy
Dear Nancy, thank you for visiting and reading the article. Briefly: Each of us transmits energy around us. When we love unconditionally the energy is very positive and surrounds the child with a loving hug. He in turn begins to calm down and feel safe. What I have learned from my life experiences in many countries around the world is that love is the most important thing that we we can provide to people we love. The poorest people in many regions of the world, have happy families even though they have just enough to eat each day, and live with very little comfort. All a child needs is unconditional love. Focus on giving him that, which is really the very best of yourself. By working so hard, and stressing yourself, you are robbing yourself of the energy to love him. You need to restore that energy within yourself first. Register for my newsletter and get access to the live interview with a teacher of autistic children…and how parents can restore calmness even in highly strung anxious children. Let me know your thoughts. Lots of love and hugs, always, Dr. V
Thanks Dr. Vie I signed up.
Great..we have an interesting webcast coming up shortly to empower youth..its free. Do register for that too. See you there. V