Are parents reponsible for their child's self-esteem?

[steffee]

Just wondering.

DS1 is a very anxious little boy and always has been. His younger brother and sister are not like that, full of self-confidence, very happy (ds1 is happy too, just a little 'worrier').

"All babies are born with boundless unselfconscious self-confidence. They aren?t born feeling inferior or superior. They?re just themselves. They?re also born interested in the people around them. They watch what these people say and do, and draw their own conclusions about what they experience." According to Mind

Is it fair on parents that almost every behavioural/attitude/self-esteem problem is blamed on your childhood and your parents? And how do you feel when faced with the task of bringing up kids only to have your efforts thrown back in your face at some point down the line?

I find it very daunting!

Mine does too, i just dont go there with her because she still has the tendancy to be aggressive and has outbursts.
I keep away but my sister gets the full force.
She is still a very domineering person and the last time she hit my sister (well, beat the crap out of her) was about 5 years ago, although there is always the threat, my poor sister is on egg shells with her.
Ive started another thread to talk to you, i hope you dont mind?

I'm sorry if I've brought painful memories back to the two of you by starting this thread

There is an excellent book called How Love Works, How affection shapes your baby's brain that shows how much the way we treat our children in the first year can affect their self esteem and likelihood of depression and mental illness for life. And that how practices we think of as normal parenting such as leaving children to cry alone can badly affect some children for the rest of their life.
I believe some children are born confident and will stay this way under all but the worst parenting, whereas others like my daughter are incredibly sensitive to every harsh word or mistake.

Yeah Roxwood, I agree.

If it's the first 12m that matters most it's too late for me to worry about what damage I might/might not have done to my dc now then, as the youngest is 21m.

I don't think people are made or broken by the first twelve months, just that it can affect them more than you might think.

I had terribly low self esteem as a child and teenager, until I went off to America to work as an Au Pair for a year at 18. After living alone for a year I started to feel like maybe I wasn't so useless after all, and then after giving birth at home to my little girl I now feel I could do anything I wanted to. So I don't believe its too late for your little one.

I think Roxswood is touching on the crux of the matter... Children are individuals. I have a DS who is very confident, full of beans. We have to lean on him to understand that he could get hurt, or that people might hurt him. His sister (2 years younger) lacks confidence in most things. I have not raised them that differently! But it's very important that we be gentle with DD, because somehow she is more affected by harsh messages from us, whereas DS1 throws off all but the most strong messages too easily.

On the other hand... DS1 is over-confident; typical boy won't do his homework because he thinks he already knows it all. Whereas it won't surprise me if DD one day diligently does her homework when asked, even though she'll already be at a high standard, just because she wants to perfect it. So in the end, DD might achieve more despite being natively less confident.

Stefee - whatever you do, don't let him know that you worry about his self esteem - that will really make him feel like a loser!

Interesting thread - I've been wondering about the shyness thing. My DD (2) is not shy at all around adults but clings to me like a limpet around lots of other kids. She's OK with small groups of kids until it gets a bit boisterous, she gets really upset if she gets even an accidental knock. Some of my relations have said that I should take her to more things to get her to toughen up a bit but I don't see why I should and I firmly believe that it is part of your genetic make-up. I can remember back to when I was very young and hated being in big crowds of kids, I still hate big crowds of anything. So whilst I encourage her as much as I can and praise her I'm not going to force her to be what others expect her to be.

steffee - did you happen to see that "Child of our Time" programme where Prof Winston made a distinction between "shyness" and "lack of self esteem" - i.e. confident children/people don't necessarily have high self esteem, and vice versa. My dh is very "shy" in company (hate that word actually) but in fact he has very high self esteem and doesn't take any nonsense from anyone.

IMO, I think the fact that DS is anxious is probably to do with his genetics, but his self esteem is more to do with his experiences. I don't know if that's comforting or not... but if ds is happy than I would say that you are doing a very good job.

Thanks HC! No I didn't see that programme but I've read tons of stuff with the same ideas. I agree that him being anxious doesn't mean he has low self-esteem and I think perhaps I was mistaken in my OP.

He is a very happy little boy, and he's also very chatty and confident, but he worries easily about things too, which makes me worry that he might not be as happy as I think, though everyone I know tells me he is happy and confident and all the rest of it, just sensitive too.

Also agree with the word "shy", nobody has confidence in all situations, and nobody has no confidence ever. We're all just different, that's all!

I think that parents have a HUGE effect on their children, self esteem included - more than any other influence in a young persons' life, and that bad parenting can be massively damaging to a kids' self esteem, but I think that our personalities have an element that is just our genetic makeup and the best parenting in the world won't fundamentaliy change that.