Genuine self-esteem is built upon a foundation of setting goals for oneself and accomplishing them. Consequently, a child must learn to engage with challenging tasks, learn to soothe her anxiety and frustration so that she can stay engaged as she struggles, and come to trust that she can learn from her failures. Instead of relieving frustration in the child by doing the task for her, the effective parent helps the child stay engaged with encouragement, queries about strategies, helps assess prior attempts, and praises effort and hard-earned accomplishments. Parents create an environment that encourages striving for greater skill and exploring new areas of intellectual development. They also model a willingness to acknowledge areas of weakness and a healthy attitude of wanting to work on them.
Self-esteem also means a child trusts her own thoughts and feelings, because she has experienced respect for and genuine interest in them from her parents. When a child pursues genuine interests and develops competence, she finds satisfaction in those activities. Similarly, she develops a view of herself with a set of values she retains; even with outside pressures to compromise them. Ultimately, genuine self-esteem leads a child to know what she expects from others in terms of being a good friend. She is willing to ask for that, or if necessary move on.
