Do it Yourself - How to Teach Children Self Confidence and Build Self Esteem

You really can't fool children. When it comes to praising children, they know whether what they've done is praiseworthy, or whether we as parents are simply offering self-esteem-boosting praise. The problem with the latter is that done enough, children begin to doubt any praise they get is really based on them doing something praiseworthy.

If everything is praiseworthy, then nothing is praiseworthy.

So instead of offering meaningless b.s.

praise to try to artificially inflate their self-esteem, why not give the "Do It Yourself" strategy a try. The Do It Yourself strategy says that when children ask their parents to do something for them because they don't know how themselves (but it is a task well within their skill and knowledge level), that the parent require the child to a. do it themselves; b.
learn with the parent how to do it.
Every parent can see how excited and how proud a child is when they learn to do something themselves for the first time, like tie their shoes or ride a bike. So this isn't about telling your child to go get his own cup of water because he's busy watching television (I find myself constantly reminding my children that I am their father, not their servant..

.but it doesn't really help anyway!) Rather it's about empowering them to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to prove to themselves that they have the ability to make decisions and work through difficult situations and succeed in overcoming them.
That -- and not phony praise -- is how a child builds self-confidence and self-esteem.
And a child with a strong self-confidence and self-esteem lays a strong foundation for future success and happiness.