The fundamental basis for building self-esteem in kids

Edwin A. Locke, PhD Psychologist and Author, shares advice for parents on how to build a strong, fundamental basis for your child's self-esteem and help your child become more independent from his or her peers
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The fundamental basis for building self-esteem in kids

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An issue parents face constantly is the need for children to have self-esteem. Now they're somewhat on the right track to know child - Especially a young child needs to be loved, it seems irrational if a parent rejects their own child and doesn't love them; but love alone isn't enough, it's not going to carry a child through life by itself, it's a good start but it's only a base. To get real, lasting self-esteem aside from a good start, a child has to learn, use, develop and respect his or her mind. You're all familiar, probably, as parents with the phony self-esteem movement which says, "All of you will get the 1st prize for doing nothing" so the child gets a temporary illusion of self-esteem and is totally incompetent to deal with the real world, so don't allow that to happen in your child's life, it doesn't work. Real self-esteem means the consistent use of your mind - thinking, evaluating, introspection to understand your emotions, thinking about what you learned in school whether it's true or not. When your child is taught something even by a good teacher, it doesn't necessarily mean it's true. A child might have to do some more thinking, might have to do a child's own research about it; so don't let your child get in the habit of saying, "Whatever the people say I'm going to agree with, that way I'll get approval, that way I'll be a better person" doesn't work. It actually backfires. Your child becomes dependent rather than independent. The child becomes distrustful of their mind, rather than confident in their mind. So they should always be thinking, you should always be encouraging the child to think about themselves to make evaluations and learn the distinction between emotions and reasons. Emotions are critical to life but to get knowledge you have to use reasons, and that's the fundamental basis for your self-esteem.

Edwin A. Locke, PhD Psychologist and Author, shares advice for parents on how to build a strong, fundamental basis for your child's self-esteem and help your child become more independent from his or her peers

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Edwin A. Locke, PhD

Psychologist & Author

Edwin A. Locke, PhD, is Dean's Professor (Emeritus) of Leadership and Motivation at the R.H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. He received his BA from Harvard in 1960 and his PhD in Industrial Psychology from Cornell University in 1964.He has published over 300 chapters, notes and articles in professional journals, on such subjects as work motivation, job satisfaction, incentives, and the philosophy of science. He is also the author or editor of 12 books, including The Selfish Path to Romance: How to Love with Passion and Reason, Study Methods and Study Motivation, Goal Setting: A Motivational Technique That Works, A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance, Handbook of Principles of Organizational Behavior, The Prime Movers: Traits of the Great Wealth Creators  and Postmodernism and Management: Pros, Cons and the Alternative. He is internationally known for his research on goal setting. A recent survey found that Locke's goal setting theory (developed with G. Latham) was ranked #1 in importance among 73 management theories. His work has been supported by numerous research grants, and he has served as consultant to research firms and private businesses.Dr. Locke has been elected a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, the Academy of Management, and has been a consulting editor for leading journals. He was a winner of the Outstanding Teacher-Scholar Award at the University of Maryland, the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the Career Contribution Award from the Academy of Management (Human Resource Division), the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Management (Organizational Behavior Division), and the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science. He has been a writer and lecturer for the Ayn Rand Institute and is interested in the application of the philosophy of Objectivism to behavioral sciences.

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