RAISING CONFIDENT KIDS

Teach your children to find real self-esteem in the unconditional love of God

by Jennifer Mangan

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Melissa is an attractive, intelligent and musically gifted 14-year-old whose self-esteem has plummeted in the last year. Outwardly, Melissa appears to be a well-adjusted happy teenager whom everyone likes. But inside, she's suffering.

The warning signs of her diminished self-esteem blinked loud and clear when Melissa's grades took a dive, angry outbursts at home became a daily event, and get-togethers with friends were replaced by nights in front of the tube. Although Melissa is a leader in her youth group at church, her spirituality quickly evaporated in the face of social pressures at school and the stresses of eighth-grade academics. She has alluded to suicide and is now in counseling where she's confessed she is unable to shake an inner voice that tells her she doesn't measure up.

Sadly, Melissa's shift from a happy, confident girl to an insecure, anxious young teen isn't all that unusual. In her book Reviving Ophelia (Putnam), sociologist Mary Pipher says, "Just as planes and ships disappear mysteriously into the Bermuda Triangle, so do the selves of girls go down in droves. In early adolescence, studies show that girls' IQ scores drop and their math and science scores plummet. They lose their resiliency and optimism and become less curious and inclined to take risks. They lose their assertive, energetic and 'tomboyish' personalities and become more deferential, self-critical and depressed."

THE TIGHTROPE

For Christians, the challenge to build a healthy sense of self-esteem in our children takes on an added dimension. We recognize that real self-esteem involves a sense of how deeply and unconditionally we are loved and valued by God. But we also know that in order for our children to grow spiritually, they must understand the reality of sin.

For many Christians, the concept of self-esteem seems in direct contrast to understanding our need for a Savior. So we find ourselves walking this tight rope between the idea of a God who judges humans and finds none righteous and a God who finds us so valuable that he would send his only son to die in our placea tough concept for even adults to grasp. So perhaps it's no surprise that Christian adolescents are as prone to falling into that "Bermuda Triangle" as their non-Christian peers.

Lisa McMinn is assistant professor of sociology at Wheaton College in Illinois and author of the book Growing Strong Daughters (Baker). She sees the loss of self-esteem in adolescent girls as a direct result of sin. "Our daughters have been created in the image of God," she states. "Yet because of sin, our ability to [be aligned with] God's will has been perverted."

So what does healthy self-esteem look like? For McMinn, the answer is Jesus and his example of living as a child of God. She writes, "[Strong daughters] know they have been made in the image of God and are empowered by God to reflect that image in a broken world." That confidence and belief that God can and does act through them is the mark of healthy self-esteem. And this underlying confidence is what separates a child with poor self-esteem from a child who is simply experiencing normal teenage insecurities. With this understanding of self-esteem, it's easy to see that helping our children develop a strong, healthy sense of their own value goes hand-in-hand with helping them develop a strong, healthy faith.

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Originally published in: Christian Parenting Today, Page 38

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