We continue, within our Maternity and Paternity Course, talking about the self-esteem and now we will offer you some tips to encourage it in your children. I will stop now to talk about the talents and the effort.
Recognize your talents
We are all capable of doing something special. We can all develop our natural talents If we find a suitable environment to achieve it. Some stand out in sports, others in music, others are passionate about nature and others by language.
There is no child who is not able to enjoy, get passionate and stand out in something. What we can do is help you discover it, accompany it and value what makes it special.
Those who usually follow us will surely have read things that I tell about my son. He is already 11 years old but since childhood he has been things that he especially enjoyed, things that made him happy to do and learn, things in which he stood out. And others, of course, for which he was not naturally gifted or who did not make him feel special.
A year ago he had to do something for a festival with his fellow students and I proposed to do just that, talk and declare. At first he worried if he was not able to learn the text or did not represent it well. I conveyed my confidence and, of course, made him understand that this was for his pleasure and that he could discard the idea if he was not proud of his work. And he did, in my opinion, very well. I have left the video to illustrate the article with his monologue of Antonio.
If I were closed to see his talents Maybe I would have been upset if my son was not a great sportsman, or he did not like large groups of boys his age, or competition games, or mathematics presented him with more problems than other subjects. If he had insisted on that instead of encouraging his passions, possibly his self-image would be different.
The other day we were doing some exercises of the language subject. We had not studied this subject, which were prefixes and suffixes. But we start I proposed a list of both elements and had to give me the meaning, the Greek or Latin origin and an example of each word. And it amazed me. With amazing speed he was reasoning and developing the subject, offering me examples of words that I did not even know that I knew or would be able to relate: heliocentric, pantheistic, polygamous, hyperpopulation, ghoul ...
It is his talent, spoken word, memory and the ability to relate topics. Since two years he started talking almost overnight, building sentences and even using subjunctive he has stood out in that. If you put a written record you can not appreciate his talent, which is shown when he develops a topic orally or recites a text.
If I expected him to score a goal and value that over all things, I would be condemning him to feel inferior. If I wanted him to climb a mountain, learn a table of memory numbers, mentally calculate lightning speed or run more than anyone else, he would never be happy to be himself.
Be happy being yourself
And that is the key to self-esteem, feel happy being yourself, with its failures and weaknesses, but also with its virtues and talents. That is why parents should especially value those talents that make our children exceptional and wonderful beings, so that they have the confidence that they can improve and feel brilliant whatever the path they decide to follow.
Value and develop talents It does not mean that we have to wait or wish that our children are great musicians, scientists, writers or athletes. It is not that they have to be "successful", but that they can be happy doing what they love most and recognizing what they can do well while helping them in what they may need most help.
Rate the effort
Just as there are things that your child will achieve without much effort and in which he will stand out, there will be others in which need to work and overcome. And as important as recognizing talent is promoting self-improvement and valuing achievements and effort.
It is very common to classify children according to their achievements, but while applauding the remarkable thing is good, making overall assessments is not. That is why I do not like, for example, school notes and much less make them public in class, pointing to the clumsy while rewarding the most skilled or applied.
With the comparisons you have to be very delicate and avoid them, rather you have to take care of each child as an individual person and help him to advance at his own pace, both at home and at school. It is important to value the child for himself, not for comparison with others.
If your child is a little slower in math, or in reading, or in physical activities, it is important to be present to help him move forward and get to master every aspect of his life that is challenging, giving them our time and becoming their support for.
We are the people who know you best and they value it more, you should always know that. And you have to tell him, transmit it with words and gestures, with looks and hugs.
I dislike this idea that the first is the winner and the others have lost. I dislike those contests and careers in which the competition is especially encouraged, and, in the end, more than transmitting self-improvement produce frustration. Worth the effort, more than being the first or the best.
That does not mean that we should convey to our son the idea that everything he does is extraordinary or offer him unrealistic goals. If convenient help you strive and to make things better and better, but above all, the key to self-esteem is that he understands that he is worth to us for what he is, not for what he earns, and that he will always stand out in something wonderful, in be yourself.
