Help! My Child’s Self-Esteem is Terrible and I Don’t Know What to Do​ (Listener Question)

Debbie:

Today I have educator Zach Morris with me for this Parent Lean In episode, and for those of you who don’t know Zach, Zach specializes in working with parents and young adults who are navigating the complex dynamics of neurodivergent experience. Zach is uniquely equipped to serve families with profiles of autism, especially PDA. I know we have a lot of listeners with kids who have some demand avoidance tendencies, families who are navigating trauma, and families that are needing to heal and repair relationships. And Zach’s been on the show many times, so I’ll have links to some of those past visits on the show notes page. And he’s also a parent coach in my differently wired club. So hello, Zach and welcome. Thanks for doing this with me today. 

Zach Morris:

Hi Debbie, thanks for having me. 

Debbie:

Of course, I always love these conversations with you. We are going to tackle a really good question, as with most of the questions we go into. I think this is one that is going to resonate with a lot of listeners in some capacity. So the question is, how can I improve my child’s self esteem, despite what feels like contact affirmations for me about how I love him always, and no matter what, whether he’s happy, angry, sweet or sour, he has taken the saying he’s the worst and that we don’t really love him or that we hate him. How can I help him feel more confident? And a little context we got for this question. This is a seven year old boy who is autistic, gifted, Tourette’s ADHD like symptoms. He has some issues with sensory overload and frustration tolerance. He doesn’t yet know all his diagnoses, because of this complex profile, which continues to change. What they say is that all brains work differently, and that that’s a good thing. So Zach, I’m actually gonna ask you to kick us off with this one. I’d love to hear what came up for you when you heard this question.

Zach Morris:

Yeah, you know, the first thing that came up for me is just how complex sort of processes may be going on for kiddo here that is contributing to some of this. So I think that’s sort of the first thing I’m thinking about, is even just making sense of, sort of what’s maybe going on here, you know. And I think about, you know, kiddos like this, right? Kiddos with this neurotype, this type of nervous system, that I just may be more susceptible to also experiencing threat. And so even inside of so many of the support offerings or affirmations or all of those things, there’s so much out there that that we don’t know that might be just sort of being picked up on as threat that, again, isn’t logical or doesn’t, you know, doesn’t sort of track reason based. And that could literally just be how I’m perceiving a certain tone, or how, you know, even though someone else might perceive that tone really differently, right? So, so just that complexity of how I might perceive threat and what that just might do to my system, and therefore how I view myself, how I view other people, viewing me, things like that, right? 

So, then I start to think about just sort of like the general culture of shame and blame that we live in, also, right, even outside of our family unit and us as parents and what we’re saying, right? Like, even outside of all of that, we’re definitely still just part of a general culture of shame and blame, right? And so if I watch movies, if I want right, like all of these things, like, there’s such little subtleties that are sort of putting value judgment on whether we’re getting it right, right. And that’s, that’s sort of the next thing I think about right, is that for so many of these kids, there’s, there’s such a focus on getting it right, right. I just want to get it right. I just want people to see me as good, right, like all so, so I, I made have such a sensitivity to also that. Measuring stick that I’m kind of oriented to, like, am I getting it right? Am I getting it right? Am I getting it right? Right? And so when I think about how we’re trying to support our kids, you know, growing more confident and more comfortability in themselves and self esteem, right, and all of these things, I think about trying to help our kids orient to, like, a new measuring stick for themselves. Like, if that’s what’s happening, if I’m sort of so often focused on, like, am I getting it right? And that’s kind of how I’m assessing things for myself. Like, how else might I be able to sort of assess my role or experience with things like, like how comfortable I am right or, or how much I’m enjoying something right, or how authentic something feels right. There’s, there’s a lot of ways of sort of orienting to something right when we think about getting it right, and my sort of orientation to assessing that and and wondering how other people are assessing that. I think about our need for reassurance, right? 

And that’s, I think, what’s almost being talked about in this question, right? Like I’m offering all of these things for reassurance, but my kiddo’s not feeling reassured in this they’re not feeling reassured that we love them and it’s okay, right? And all of these things. And so I think about reassurance as, again, a need that gets met, but the strategy for meeting that need could be many different strategies, right? And it might be that I just might not get my need for reassurance very met from just hearing sort of verbal affirmations, right? So, just like hearing someone tell me it’s okay, or hearing someone tell me they love me, like that might, if not, meet my need for reassurance, right? Not that it’s not an offering that could do that or do that for someone else, but, but for me, it just, it just might not be right because of some of maybe my sensitivity to that, to that threat, right? I mean, we’re almost even starting to talk rejection sensitivity stuff here. I would, I would really encourage this parent and people to look into, you know, RSD, rejection sensitive dysphoria type stuff, even if we’re not talking that there’s a lot of rejection sensitivity going on for these neurotypes A lot of times. 

So that’s, again, that sort of complex processing of just extra sensitivity and how do I get reassured? Right? Maybe I get reassured from just moments of connection and joy and just I noticed, like, you know, after I did that for an hour, kind of together, like, Oh, I just all of a sudden, actually have a greater sense that people love me and it’s okay, like, more so than when they were just telling me possibly, right? So there’s, like, there’s so many complexities to like, what does meet that need for reassurance for me, right? And that might not be what’s going on, but that could be a layer to this, right? 

The last thing I kind of want to mention is, it’s a long game process, and it’s slow, but what I think and what I see to be really impactful for kiddos. You know, navigating stuff like this is really just getting to know my experience a little bit more so as we also think about, like, what happens right before, I’m like, telling myself that you hate me, or, like, what happens right before I don’t think you love me, you know, like, are we able to sort of support our kiddo and starting to identify, like, whether it’s some of those sensations physically, or whether that’s other thoughts in the Brain that come up, or things they observe in their visual field, like what happens right before this? Because if we can get to know that space, we might start to actually have more opportunities before I’m totally panicked or totally, you know, stuck in that those sort of narratives of habit, you know, that have started to develop.

Debbie:

Such good stuff. And I just took a ton of notes. I want to respond to a couple things that came up as you were talking, and then I have some additional thoughts. And so let’s take a quick break, and we’ll do that when we get back. So a couple things just on what you were talking about. You know that last thing, that skill of kind of starting to notice right before it comes up. I just want to reiterate that that is kind of a long game, kind of a situation, and it is. It’s exciting to think about getting to a point where you can really identify that so you can be in it more consciously as you navigate you know all the all the feelings and the needs that aren’t being met. So I love that, and I also just the way you honed in on this need for reassurance, I think is so important. So I just want to reiterate that and that need to be reassured may not be being met by the ways that the parents, for example, in this question, are trying to meet it. 

One of the things I had written down is that as parents, we’re not necessarily the most trusted sources of validation for our kids. Because, you know, when you’re my parents, of course you think that, of course, you think I’m great at this, of course you love me, right? And so I think when parents try to validate or convince a child that they’re not who they feel they are, or that they have nothing to feel bad about, there’s this almost immediate dismissal that doesn’t really count, because it’s coming from you. So I really like this idea of thinking about other ways that that need for being reassured can be met. 

A couple other things that came up for me as I was thinking about this question. One is some kids have a nature or temperament that is kind of inherently more of a glass, half empty kind of a temperament or nature, and this may just be part of the wiring as well. And so it can be really hard for parents if you have a child who tends to kind of seems as if they came out of the womb with a low self esteem, with a low sense of self, with low confidence. And while I do think there are absolutely things we can do to support and to build up positive experiences and really kind of make some progress in that area, it can be also just a good reminder to ourselves that there’s also a thing such as a personality or who we are, and we’re not necessarily going to change someone who, if they are that kind of more negative mindset or glass half empty person, flip a switch and kind of pivot them to being like a positive optimist. So just putting that out there.

A couple other things, you know, for parents, this can bring up a lot of anxiety in us, because none of us want to raise a kid who has low self esteem. We’ve read the studies, we know how important it is to have confidence, to feel good about yourself, all of those things. And so we can get really anxious about this, like this is on me. I have to do what I need to do to help my kid feel better about themselves. And so that drive can also lead to us trying to overcompensate, and that can mean that we might be inauthentic in the way that we are, you know, praising certain things or bringing attention to things. And again, our kids can pick up on inauthenticity like nobody’s business. So it’s really important to just kind of tease out, where is my anxiety playing a role in this, and what am I making it mean if my child is feeling not so great about themselves, and what is that bringing up for me? And how can I take care of that? 

The last thing that I would say is in terms of, you know, building up their confidence. I mean, this may kind of seem obvious, but you know, we know these kids have so many inherent strengths, and they have interests, and they have these gifts and talents that are also inherent to who they are. And so what we want to do as parents is try to find and seek out opportunities where they can just spend time in flow, where they can spend time doing things that they really enjoy, where they feel good about themselves, and kind of fill up that Bank of positive experiences. And as part of that, encourage our kids to reflect on how they feel about it, I noticed that you were completely immersed in that building project on Minecraft. What did that feel like? What do you love about that, you know, and just kind of drawing attention to things when they are in that flow positive state, so that they can start to, you know, build up some of the confidence, because self esteem is really if we’re trying to build our self esteem based on others validation, that’s not a great plan, right? And in fact, there’s a movement to replace self esteem with self worth, and that’s something that we can develop on our own. And so the more that we can kind of highlight, you know, strengths of our kids and encourage them to reflect on them themselves, that can help them over time again. We’re playing the long game, but kind of build up their self worth in a way that actually does feel authentic and that they can have some true agency over so that’s what came up for me. I’m just wondering, is there anything that my response brought up and you Zach that you want to speak to, or anything else you want to add?

Zach Morris:

Yeah, I love that. And I’m sure we could, we could keep ping pong and back and forth here, you know, I, I was thinking about, you know, when you were talking about kind of empathizing, you know, with them, where it’s like, I might be someone that just kind of, you know. Has that orientation to stuff a little bit more naturally, right? That, like when I’m having the experience of thinking you don’t love me, or I’m not good enough, or all of those things to just hear the opposite of that kind of, to your point, might not actually feel good. It might not feel oh, great. I’m so glad. It might be like, wait, but you don’t understand, you’re not hearing me right. And so like, I think that as parents and I feel this myself right, that it can be hard sometimes to like, want to go in and sort of empathize and be with that experience that they’re having. Because we want to like, we want to help remind them of the other side. We want to, like, show them they are loved, right? All of those things, but I actually see it being so helpful, right, especially over time, right? Long game approach to maybe actually going into that space and empathizing and being with them in that experience of thinking you hate them right now, and like, how hard that must be, and how, like, you know, like, like, scary that must feel, right? And like, can I actually go there with you and, and have that make so much sense, right? That actually, like, you’re having this experience right now, and, and, gosh, that must be really scary. Like that might actually help me feel a little bit more reassured that, you know, Oh, it’s okay that I’m having this experience, not actually, maybe just another version of me not getting it right. Like, if I’m like, Oh, you don’t love me, but I hear actually, all the ways in which I should be thinking that you do love me, or all of that, I just might be going through another experience of maybe not getting it right in some way, right? 

And so, I think just remembering for us as parents that, like, when our kids are in that moment, there’s like panic online, we’re like panicking, right? And so in that panic, I can’t reason, I can’t maybe see what you see. So I really need to hear and see that you can understand what I see right now. You can understand what I feel right now. Yeah, and, and it’s really hard, and it’s really scary as parents to do that, but, but I just see it time and time again support our kids. 

Debbie:

I’m so glad that you added that to the end of this conversation 1,000% validate that feeling, because it is their feeling, and as part of that, we are not panicking about it. So we can validate without agreeing, but we can certainly acknowledge that it must be so hard to feel that way. Gosh, that is a big, heavy feeling, and doing that with calmness and steadiness. So we show them we can tolerate this, and you can tolerate this too. It’s just a feeling so good, so good. Well, okay, I think that was a lot of feedback for that question. I hope that the person who asked it and all the listeners get something out of that. And if you have a child who’s struggling with low self worth, low self esteem, low confidence. Hopefully that gave us some things to reflect on. So Zach, I want to thank you for joining me to talk through this. I want to thank the listener for that question and yeah, just sign off for now. Thanks again. Zach.

Zach Morris:

Thanks, Debbie.