How a Mama’s Self-Esteem Impacts Her Kids

Find out why it’s important for MAMAS to have a healthy sense of self-esteem to raise confident kids!

Giving your child a positive sense of self to succeed in life starts with you, mama. Children with high self-esteem feel loved and have the confidence to tackle challenges. They are not afraid to fail, because they view potential failures only as temporary setbacks. However, according to the experts at Incontact Counselling & Training, it’s difficult to raise children with healthy self-esteem if you yourself suffer from low self-esteem. Without realizing it, you will pass on the attitudes, fears and thinking that accompany low self-esteem.

So: it’s time to take a moment for self-care and self-reflection and consider how you feel about yourself, mama! We spoke with Incontact to learn more about how self-esteem is impacted, and what we can do to improve it, both in ourselves and our kids.

What is self-esteem?

Self-esteem is a way that you think of yourself; with a healthy self-esteem you’ll feel proud of what you can do and see yourself as deserving respect from others. Of course, our childhood and adult experiences sometimes create low self-esteem in us. By the age of 7 to 10 years old, we have often created a script for ourselves and it may be a positive or negative one depending on our childhood.

The cognitions which we have commonly developed with a negative script are “I’m not good enough”, “I’m not lovable”, “I’m not important” and “I don’t deserve this”.

What affects our self-esteem?

Childhood experiences that can lead us to such thoughts may be constant comparisons with siblings, punitive punishments, academic delays, bullying, sexual abuse, divorce or separation and abandonment. Unfortunately, these thoughts can lead to feelings of shame, guilt and sadness.

As adults, life traumas could be any stress that disrupts your life and affects you in a more chronic way. Examples can be divorce, parenting issues, work or social bullying, sexual assault, abusive relationships, an accident or an illness. Trauma is an event that erodes your psychological and emotional well-being and has an effect on your belief system, which shows through our behaviours at work and relationships.

How to improve self-esteem

Incontact’s team of experienced and trained counsellors (accredited by the Singapore Counselling Association) specializes in professional counselling and psychotherapy. Through an integrative and holistic approach incorporating Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Hypnotherapy, and Transactional Analysis, they work in complete confidentiality with individuals, couples, families, children and groups undergoing such transitions at different points in their lives.

Not familiar with EMDR, mama? It’s a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that can result from disturbing life experiences. EMDR shows that the mind can heal from psychological trauma by reformulating negative beliefs and creating new associations between the traumatic memory resulting in complete information processing, elimination of emotional distress and development of cognitive insights.

Life’s too short to let low self-esteem hold you back from enjoying a more meaningful relationship with your loved ones, mama. Give the Incontact team a call to help you raise your self-esteem; it’s time to appreciate your good qualities and feel worthy in every sense!

Incontact Counselling & Training, 111-North Bridge Road, #07-10 Peninsula Plaza, Singapore 179098, Tel: (+65) 9060 9892, [email protected], www.incontact.com.sg