Self-Esteem: Too Much of a Good Thing?
By Peggy Patten,
Parent News Offline, Spring 2000,National Parent Information Network
Articles about self-esteem regularly appear in newspapers, popular magazines, and education and psychology journals. Parents have been caught up in this preoccupation with their child’s self-esteem and often ask, “How is my child feeling about himself/herself?” (Woods, 1999). In an article entitled “Self-Esteem: Balance between Individual and Community,” Carol Woods suggests that in our concern for children’s self-esteem over all else, we are creating a nation of self-absorbed individuals who are incapable of assuming necessary levels of responsibility and contributing to the overall well-being of society. In her writings about self-esteem, Professor Lillian Katz (1993) also asks whether we are developing our children’s self-esteem or narcissism, which she defined as an “excessive preoccupation with oneself”.
So, is helping children feel good about themselves a bad thing to do?
Of course not, but constant messages to children about how wonderful they are may raise doubts about the credibility of the message and the messenger. As psychologist Martin Seligman (1998) notes, parents would do their children greater service by helping them develop the abilities that warrant self-esteem - doing well in the world, taking personal responsibility, and getting along well with others.
One of parents’ greatest balancing acts (and there are many) is to find the right tension between letting your child feel unconditional love as the center of the universe while gradually broadening the focus of his or her worldview to include the needs of a wider community with a concern for the common good. Self-esteem is important, Carol Woods reminds us, but it is one of many vital elements in human development. It depends not only on self-respect, but also on mutual respect.