Building Your Child's Self-Esteem: 9 Secrets Every Parent Needs to Know

by Yvonne Brooks

Self-esteem is your sense of personal worth. It encompasses both self-confidence and self-acceptance. In part, healthy self-esteem comes from your awareness of the value you add to your family and the community. In Building Your Child's Self-Esteem, author Yvonne Brooks provides a step-by-step guide for improving children's self-esteem. Practical and hands-on, with clear and concise instructions, Building Your Child's Self-Esteem shows parents how to identify healthy and low self-esteem behaviors in their children. Parents will also learn how to overcome and correct unproductive habits that limit their child's performance. From developing a series of ideas for empowering children toward self-responsibility and awareness, parents will get the information needed to activate their child's potential for maximum success. Parents will learn how self-esteem manifests in children, how children with healthy and low self-esteem communicate, and how healthy and low self-esteem characteristics affect parenting skills. Building Your Child's Self-Esteem provides guidance to help parents manifest and produce healthy, confident, courageous children.

188 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Donna Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seems kind of weird and distressing that so many parenting books are needed. Although I suppose as the world becomes more complicated, fast-paced, technologically-centered, and narcissistic, then more information telling people how to parent will seem necessary. Yet really, be kind, well, duh. Love your child. Really? Do people really need to be told these things, given examples, etc.? Sadly, I guess they do. Can these traits be learnt from a book? Will someone telling parents to be gentle, kind, and good to their own children work if they're not already doing so or it's not their nature? Not to detract from the author or this text, in reality, people apparently do need parenting books. I'm simply fascinated by the concept.
I won this book from the Goodreads First Reads program and as parenting books go and I’ve read many, it’s fine. The premise is sound and it’s portioned into easy-to-follow sections. In this case they are preaching to the converted, but I appreciated the effort although this book isn’t very user-friendly for parents of special needs children, ie. Children with Autism. I did appreciate that this book gave a good sense of the difference between inflating and giving a false sense of self-esteem and actually nurturing a child’s true self-esteem so they will know and benefit from their true worth.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book through GoodReads First Reads in exchange for an honest review

To be honest, this wasn't the best parenting book I've read. I *loved* the concept, focusing on the child's self-esteem, looking at areas like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, optimism, gentleness, and self-control. And I really did enjoy that at the end of every chapter they had a bunch of quotes from diverse sources relating to the subject of the chapter. I appreciated that they would quote Mother Teresa and Lao Tzu on the same page, for example, not discriminating people of differing faiths and worldviews. I enjoyed that they ended each chapter with suggested reading for each age group (younger children, older children parents) and movies which exhibit the character trait of the chapter. Even the exercises were interesting. But the chapters weren't, in my opinion, really entailed enough. They each hinged around of a story, which I guess just isn't my style. The "secrets" that came after the story were a better expansion of the character trait given in the story, but I wish they had written from a more direct, matter of fact kind of style. I'm not sure I'm explaining that well enough, but basically I just had a hard time connecting with the book, even though I agreed with the focus and content, because of the style in which it was given. There were things I was able to take away, and for that I have to be grateful. I just wasn't in love with this book, as I have been with others.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won this book, and was looking forward to reading it. I have read other books on building a child's self-esteem, but this book was nowhere near as informative as the other books I've read. Based on Christian scriptures and theoretical/hypothetical situations, this book focuses on nine fundamental traits that should be taught to a child, including peace, love, joy, and patience. I wanted this book to be more grounded in practical application rather than theoretical and generalized positive values that any person would benefit from instilling. The only good part of the book was the list of quotes and positive affirmations pertaining to each of the nine traits.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won this book in a goodreads giveaway. I'm not sure what to say except I was a bit disappointed because I thought it'd be a little bit more in depth. There's a few good suggestions on becoming a better person and hoping it'll rub off on your kids... I feel like its more geared to older children with the activities they give you but oh well I guess.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was really looking forward to getting this book. It has a lot of great ideas in it and I believe it would be a support to not just parents. I took it to work, where I work with people with disabilities and all of my co-workers have taken a peek at it and have tasken tips to help with our jobs.

[Carrie]

Another Goodreads First Reads win! This book looks really interesting. I look forward to reading it.

[Ponch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall this book had some good ideas, many of them I hope you use when my kids get a little older.

[Arijit]

good book on building self esteem of children