Can Self-Esteem be Too Easily Lost? - The Power of Inherent Worth (IW) to promote happiness.

​There are shelves of books about the importance of a child’s self-esteem, but I want to point out a crucial difference between self-esteem and Inherent Worth. Our Inherent Worth is absolute. Our IW just is. It doesn’t depend on what we do or what we don’t do. It is non-negotiable - it just is. It is easy to see the truth of this when a baby is born. No one comes into the world any other way. We were all equally naked. It stands to reason then, that our worth is not established:

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• by our wealth,
• not by our career,
• nor by how thin we are,
• not by how good we are at math,
• nor by the clothes we wear

Self-esteem, on the other hand, must be earned. It depends on our achievements – on things outside us. Self-esteem is generated from external approval or achievements – this is fine as long as it is due to mastery of a skill that leads to personal growth and joy. My Granddaughter loves to roll over – she’s 4 months old so this is a new skill for her. Clearly rolling over gives her a wonderful feeling of joy. That’s the joy we want to feel every day. That’s the joy we’d like our children to feel everyday. It’s our birthright to feel joyful. So even though rolling over is extrinsic – her worth would be no less if she never learned to roll over – she feels happy when she does it. It’s the FEELING that counts. Of course, we want our children to feel good about themselves. In fact, we want them to fall in love with themselves. That’s the goal.
Self-esteem that is generated from climbing a ladder higher than someone else – such as winning a competition or getting a higher grade or more goals is a double-edged sword. It leads to the idea that people have different worth – someone is always higher on the ladder than we are and so this can lead to subconscious feelings of unworthiness. If you define your worth by your achievements, there is a risk that you’ll believe you are worthless if you fail. We can have self-esteem based on the evidence of our achievements, but feel worthless subconsciously because those achievements led me to believe that worth is conditional.
Five ways to help your child own his/her Inherent Worth:

1. Treat everyone with great respect – model an understanding that every person has the same intrinsic worth. No exceptions.
2. Redefine success as inner peace and happiness. Isn’t that what we all really want for our families?
3. Be careful with praise: The point here is not to train children to be constantly looking outside themselves for approval. Rather we need to teach them to find approval within themselves. Rather than praising a picture that a child painted ask the child if she enjoyed painting it. Barbara Coloroso, (Kids are Worth It) cautions not to get excited when a child brings home an ‘A’ or a ‘D’, but rather be curious. How was the exam? How did you study for it? What were the tricky questions? What did you enjoy the most about the subject? You’ll learn far more about what is going on for your child.
4. Look at your child with radical amazement – at the miracle that they are. Listen to them with your full attention (cell phone off, eye contact maintained).
5. Remind your kids that their worth is not established by their report card; not by how many goals they score; nor by how well they can play the piano. Remind yourself that your worth is not established by your child’s achievements.