Cultivating Self-Esteem in Young Children

City Kids Daycare believes in the healthy and confident growth of each child. By actively incorporating social and emotional learning into a child's day, City Kids Daycare helps each child to know and value him- or herself.

For preschool children, self-esteem means believing in themselves as valuable, capable, and worthwhile members of the community. Feeling accepted by others, children grow to understand that they each have something positive to contribute. This mindset is essential to approaching the world with confidence.

The growth of self-esteem is a complex process, and there is no single fail-safe key to making sure that each child develops this quality. Educators and psychologists do understand, however, that self-esteem cannot grow unless a child knows that his or her parents and teachers provide unconditional love and acceptance. This does not mean that adults can neglect to correct misbehavior; rather, that such corrections should focus on the action while asserting that the child him- or herself is not under attack.

Self-esteem also comes from praise, as long as it is specific. The ubiquitous “good job” is much less effective than noting the particular effort that a child took to string beads, work a puzzle, or help a friend. Parents and teachers can incorporate this praise into each step of a new skill-building process, so that the child feels the accomplishment not only of the skill itself, but of the persistence involved in mastery.