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*How To Love Yourself* Teaching children to love themselves


So often I hear children when they are engaging in art or creative activities in our sessions be extremely critical towards themselves. Most of the time I hear phrases like:

1. Its stupid

2. I can't do this

3. I'm stupid

4. I hate this

5. Its not right

Some children do not even say anything and simply communicate with their actions from:

1. Rubbing out every line or using an eraser frequently

2. Throwing their pencils on the table

3. Hitting the table

4. Crossing their arms and not engaging

5. Disrupting the classroom

When you can understand why children do this, it is a lot easier to manage. Whenever I am doing a session of art or creativity with a child I never tell them to draw. I work with them as a team to draw together and achieve something together. Some examples would be that I would draw the picture but ask the children to point out what type of shapes they see and where does the shape go, how big or small is the shape next to the other one. This way, they are still engaging and learning. Depending on their level of confidence I ask them to draw one thing on their project towards the end.

Why is this done? When you feel you are 'encouraging' a child by saying come on, give it a try, you know you can do this, to saying its ok to get things wrong are all phrases children feel 'controlled' by. Every person naturally pushes themselves out of their comfort zones when they feel ready. They have to make the decision to push themselves out their comfort zone. If you are 'encouraging' a child to push themselves this can be damaging to their confidence especially in what is supposed to be fun activities. The reason for this is because when they get the activity wrong they will be upset with themselves and decide that they just cannot do it.

Why do children mostly use critical words?

1. They have an older sibling who they compare themselves to. The sibling easily completes the task and they feel they should be able to.

2. They have a parent who they compare themselves to. The child will see that the adult is successfully achieving an end result without making mistakes. They don't see how the adult had to practice to get to the point of creating by learning from many mistakes.

3. Parents over encourage their support. Like explained above with encouragement. This feeds into training children that if they don't get something going their way its ok to fall into victim mode.

4. They witness their parents using critical words towards themselves. This is a very important point. Adults say aloud statements like;' I could never do this' / 'Don't be silly' / Don't be stupid

How to teach your children how to love themselves is simple:

LOVE YOURSELF AS AN ADULT

Children do, say and feel what they learn from adults. When children are having behavior changes its because they have learnt from the adults how to deal with their emotion.

There are many books that can help parents to understand how to love themselves which are suggested below from other parents:

1. Dr John Demartini - The breakthrough experience

2. Louise Hay - You can heal your life

3. Louise Hay - The power is within you

4. Louise Hay - You can heal your heart


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