The star baseball player, the most graceful girl in the ballet class, the child who consistently gets top marks at school – these kids are competent, right?  They excel at what they do, they’re recognized by others as being capable and effective.  They must have high self-esteem.  Maybe…

Strong self-esteem requires two basic beliefs. There is the foundation: “I am lovable and valuable, just because I’m me”. This is the “feeling good” component of self-esteem. When we love our children, unconditionally, when we accept them and consistently look for ways to make them feel loved, we nurture that first fundamental belief. This was the topic of my article: “Does Your Child Feel Special?”

Feeling loved and special isn’t enough. Our children also need to believe “I am competent and worthwhile. I have something to offer others”. This is the other part of self-esteem, the “doing well” component. Both parts are necessary for a child to evaluate himself positively. When a child “feels good”, he will be primed to succeed. Every success, every time he “does well”, in turn reinforces those good feelings. As parents, or other important people in a child’s life, we can intervene and positively influence a child by encouraging either part of this process. In this article, I’ll focus on what we can do to encourage our child’s sense of competence.Lets get back to the baseball superstar and the academic achiever.

There just isn’t enough room at the top, so what if your child doesn’t excel at anything? What if she’ll never earn great marks or win a race or play an instrument? Of course that’s the reality for most children. And yet, we know that children need to “do well” in order to feel competent and worthwhile. So, how do we help them to experience success?

Whether or not a child will evaluate himself as competent depends on how closely his expectations match with his results. And who has the most influence on those expectations? We do. As parents, coaches or teachers, we need to be realistic in setting standards for our children that are healthy for them. We need to encourage them to recognize their existing strengths and celebrate their development and increasing skills. If Dad longs for a great football player in the family but Johnny would rather watch it on TV, expecting athletic prowess would most certainly be damaging to Johnny’s sense of competence.

Even if Johnny loves sports, his parents need to strike a balance between standards that offer a challenge and yet build in lots of room for success. Johnny may be a superstar by most standards, but if he is never able to reach the mark that he or others have set, he’ll never feel competent. By comparison, if a mediocre athlete like Susie has learned to challenge herself, but also to be pleased with small successes, she’ll likely feel much more capable and confident than Johnny.