We are all hardwired for good esteem. Esteem spontaneously emerges with success. A child knows if a block structure once built remains standing; a child knows if a bow tied stays fast; you can see the pleasure they experience with success. The pleasure experienced by the child is the reward mechanism designed to anchor ‘esteem’ in the child.

Our job is to let that mechanism work. We and powerful others can get in the way and effectively overide the operation of this natural process. When we do so, we remove the locus of esteem from the child and place it in the hands of others who will judge them. This renders the child overly vulnerable to the judgements of others and transfers the business of maintaining esteem to an intellectual realm where it is ‘thought about’.

The correction for this error requires witholding of judgements about the performance of others to create the conditions for the natural mechanism for fair self evaluation to occur.

Anecdote: I knew Sue well when she was 4. She would run towards me beaming and happily show me a drawing. At 6, quieter, she would offer me a drawing posing the question, “do you like it”. She is now insecure and awaiting my pronouncement about the value of her work. The locus of control of her esteem has slipped away from her. My goal is to permit the self judging mechanism to ‘kick in’. I do not make a judgement about liking her drawing. Rather I remark, “you seem to like blue; do you?” or “I see, it’s a big house”. With a significant number of similar experiences her own mechanism for judging her own accomplishment ‘kicks in’. She remarks shyly, “I like it”. I smile.

This esteem is anchored in a full-bodied experience as opposed to an intellectual experience. It is anchored in pleasure and satisfaction with one’s own efforts. It is not dependent upon the judgement of others. It is fair and proportionate to the child’s real accomplishments.

If an older child is having difficulty achieving success in one or another context, e.g. sports, academics or music, this must be acknowledged and taken into account for a reality-based sense of self esteem. Esteem based on ‘hype’ predisoposes to narcissistic personality patterns.

The science: Children necessarily rely upon adult caretakers to help them understand their world. In their own experience they, as psychic agents, have determined that adults have an edge on them and that, it behooves them to rely upon input from them. Children also however, possess extraordinary feedback systems that can provide them with the most useful information. Parents can inadvertently train the mind system of a child to place little value upon their own feedback systems. This may take the form of ‘clean your plate’ (irregardless of feedback from the system that well regulates eating) or, ‘nevermind if you’re pleased with your own accomplishment, there is some arbitrary standard out there and you are (or are not) measuring up’. Careful management of the appropriate tension between fair self judgement and benefits to be derived from the judgement of others is critical to good self esteem.