Helping Children with Low Self-Esteem

A Guidebook

Margot Sunderland, Nicky Hancock, Nicky Armstrong

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351692953
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

This is a guidebook to help children who: "don't like themselves or feel there is something fundamentally wrong with them"; "have been deeply shamed"; "have received too much criticism or haven't been encouraged enough"; "let people treat them badly because they feel they don't deserve better"; "do not accept praise or appreciation because they feel they don't deserve it"; "feel defeated by life, fundamentally unimportant, unwanted or unlovable"; "bully because they think they are worthless or think they are worthless because they are bullied"; and "feel they don't belong or do not seek friends because they think no-one would want to be their friend.

UNDERSTANDING A CHILD’S FEELINGS OF WORTHLESSNESS

Why a deep, loving human connection in early life is at the very core of self-esteem

The mother… reveals by the light and expression on her face the nature of the baby in her mind which is there to be read by the baby and which forms the basis for his developing self-image from the beginning of life outside the womb. (Reid, 1990, p48)

A deep, loving connection to someone in childhood is a vital foundation if a child is to develop positive self-esteem. This connection is not necessarily to a parent; it may be to a nanny, auntie or grandparent. But it has to be a person who is around enough of the time, otherwise a connection cannot deepen and develop. Only relationships that have been nurtured over time can profoundly influence the emotion biochemistry in the child’s brain which, as we shall see, is a core factor for self-esteem.

A deep connection to someone is not equivalent to having felt loved by someone. A child may have felt loved by a parent with whom he had a somewhat weak or ambivalent connection.

A deep connection is a relationship in which

	The child consistently feels appreciated, encouraged, and very known for who he is in a totally non judgmental way.
	The child feels soothed and calmed when distressed.
	The child feels accepted for who he is, not for the other person’s version of who he is – or who they want him to be.
	The child doesn’t have to hide any of his feelings to feel accepted – for example, grief, anger, fear, anxiety, passion, love. In other words, there is something big enough and strong enough in this other person to be undaunted by the child’s intense emotions. As Thomas Moore says, ‘The word intimacy means “profoundly interior”… In our intimate relationships, the “most within” dimensions of ourselves and the other are engaged’ (Moore, 1992, p212).
	When the child is at his most fully alive, fully rejoicing, fully grieving, fully angry, etc, the other person will respond without closing off, without persuading him out of the feeling he is having, or becoming judgmental.
	With this other person, the child feels safe enough to:

– Play

– Laugh

– Get excited

– Be spontaneous

– Cry

– Get angry

– Tell their deepest secrets

– Tell their deepest pain

	The child knows this person will take the time to understand fully what he is feeling, and to check with him that he has got it right.
	The child knows that he will be remembered by this person in his absence. It is terribly important to children to know they live in the mind of their loved one, rather than ‘fall out of it’ when they are not there. As one six-year-old boy said to his therapist, Will you forget me when I’m gone? I’m afraid you will.’
	The child knows that with this person, their imagination, thoughts and feelings may all be actively engaged in some way.
	The two should bring out something very alive in each other. As Hycner says, ‘There is a meeting of something deep inside of me with something deep inside this other person’ (1993, p7).
	With this other person, the child experiences the feeling of ‘thriving’ and of being very alive.

In short, with this person the child visits some of the richest vistas of human relating possible. Being together with this other person takes the child into truly creative ways of being – into a whole array of colours, tones, and hues of shared emotional energy states: calm, bubbly, excited, loving, tender, quiet, passionate, fascinated. It brings him the deepest sense of being valued. It is all this that can enable the child to weather so well many of life’s trials, to maintain a strong sense of hope in the face of adversity, and a certainty about the goodness and beauty in the world.

With a deep connection such as this, firmly established in childhood, the child’s adult life may of course be very painful at times – nothing can save him from that – but the pain is far less likely to send him plummeting into despair and hopelessness. Similarly, if people do shame, bully, discourage or criticise him, they will not destroy his self-esteem. Furthermore, if the criticism is given by someone bearing him goodwill, he will not feel attacked, but will take it on board as potentially useful feedback. He may decide to change something about his feeling, thinking or behaving as a result. If, however, the criticism is given by someone who does not bear him good will (for example, given out of envy, hate, or malice) then he may indeed go into a place of shame or doubt – but only temporarily, before he re-connects with his fundamental deep-down belief in his basic worth as a human being.

Some important quotations from psychotherapy about the power of deep connection in the establishing of both self- esteem and love of life

…one part of ourselves that we cherish is the wealth we have accumulated through our relations to people, for these relations and also the emotions that are bound up with them have become an inner possession. (Klein, 1988, p340)

A soul mate is someone to whom we feel profoundly connected, as though the communicating and communing that takes place between us were not the product of intentional efforts, but rather a divine grace. This kind of relationship is so important to the soul that many have said there is nothing more precious in life. (Moore, 1994, pxviii)

All real living is meeting. (Buber, 1958, p11)

Connection with another always both actualises and expands the self… (Mitchell, 1995, p277)

This process of displacing love [from a person to a love of life] is of the greatest importance for the development of the personality and of human relationships; indeed, one may say, for the development of culture and civilisation as a whole. (Klein, 1946)

Low self-worth — because the connection between parent and child went wrong

Sally and Mike [parents]… didn’t know that babies and little kids need to laugh, and be held… and be warm and fed… and be smiled at… and tickled. (Hughes, 1998, p121)

In this quotation, Hughes makes a vital point. Some parents never experienced a deep connection (as described above) with someone in their own childhood, so as a result, they may not know how to connect in this way with their child. As Oscar Wilde said, ‘We all need love, but who can do the loving?’ Yet for a child, not to feel very very special to someone by whom they feel deeply known, means that the vital foundation to their self-esteem cannot be laid down.

Being unsure as to whether they are special to their parent – unsure if they are held very dear in heart and mind – is the fate of some children. They have never felt themselves to be their parent’s prince or princess – a birthright for every child.

Samantha, aged thirteen

Samantha, had made three suicide attempts. Her parents had given her up for adoption at two. When seeing the psychiatrist she said, ‘I was a good baby. Why wasn’t I special to them?’ This wound of feeling unloved, unknown and unappreciated by the person you desperately need to love you, know you and appreciate you, can lead to a state of deep despair. Children do not understand this as being due to their parents’ problems with loving. They so often see it as their own fundamental ‘unloveability’.

Eddie, aged twelve

Eddie was living in care. He kept spiders. Eddie’s self-esteem was at rock bottom, due to being rejected by the most important person in his life – his mother. Eddie loved his spiders and would kiss them and make little beds for them, but when he felt bad about himself the spiders all mysteriously died. Then one day, Eddie tried to kill himself. That is what can happen to a little boy when he is rejected by the most important person in his life. Luckily, Eddie was given a therapist. With her help, he was able to understand how the spiders represented his vulnerable infant self, which had felt so ‘killed off’ by his mother’s rejection. He had needed help to begin to grieve. Therapy provided him with that help.

The small child loses self-esteem when he loses love and attains it when he regains love…children…need…[ongoing, mirroring] supplies of affection…’ (Fenichel, 1945, p41)

When a parent doesn’t bond with her child – the effect on self-esteem

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• About the Author & Illustrator
• Introduction
• What Life Is Like for Children Who Think They Are Worthless
• Understanding A Child’s Feelings of Worthlessness
• What to Say and How to Be with Children Who Think They Are Worthless
• Practical Ways of Enabling Children to Speak About and Work Through Feelings of Low Self-Worth
• Considering Counselling or Therapy for Children Who Suffer from Low Self-Esteem
• Recommended Reading
• Bibliography