Worth: How to Teach Our Kids Self Worth
Worth – Teaching Our Kids Worth We live in a time where our kids are being battered around by all kinds of voices and comparisons, more than when we were kids for sure. 24/7 they are hearing lies about ways they don’t measure up. Depression, anxiety, and suicide are on a serious increase. As adults, we are facing these things too, but we have history, context, and experience to know that these things come and go but our kids don’t. Especially during the pandemic, the hopelessness, and questions about “Am I worth it” can be very loud voices. With current events like this, it’s more important than ever to notice what our kids are going through and identify how they are feeling about themselves. Teaching our kids how to have a healthy sense of worth is paramount. All this month we’ve been building our idea of worth using the acronym VIP, value, identity, and purpose. We are going to use these same ideas to explore practical ways to teach a healthy sense of worth to our kids. First, psychologists agree a good place for parents to start is by modeling what healthy self-worth looks like themselves. We don’t have to be perfect or have everything figured out to do this. The process is as important, if not more important, than being able to show our kids we know and understand our value, identity, and purpose. Teaching our kids is reinforcing their value, identity, and purpose in our every day lives. Identity and purpose will come later as they grow in their own story and along their own life path. But we can teach our kids value from day one to create a foundation of healthy worth. Teaching value is first found in understanding who God is. We often measure ourselves by comparing ourselves with other people. We may not have the same characteristics, traits, or attributes as someone else and we can determine incorrectly that somehow means we are less valuable. But the good news is that value has everything to do with God and nothing to do with us. When we start with who He is, we can accept that our great Creator who hung the stars and moon and created everything on earthy also thought it was important for each of us to be created. He loves us dearly and brought us to life because we each needed to be here. His decision to create us demonstrates our intrinsic value. But how do we teach this to our kids? We can do this in three practical ways every day. 1. Show affection 2. Speak affirmation 3. Create space Show Affection We can first encourage a sense of worth in our kids by showing them affection. Our kids need to know how much they are valued by us. They need to know we are so glad they are here, and they are not an accident. We can’t assume our kids know how proud of them we are or how glad we are to be their mom or dad. We must demonstrate it by showing them affection. Our kids need daily reminders that we are happy to have time with them and that we enjoy being around them. We can show them this with hugs, sitting together and just being close to them, or telling them with words or acts of service that they matter to us. Showing affection can look lots of different ways, like being at their sporting event, remembering their favorite things and taking time to know what’s important to them. With older kids, don’t let them isolate to their rooms too much. It’s normal for teens to want some space but make it a priority to be near them when you can - after work, at meals, at bedtime. Use eye contact and body language to show them you care. Being in each other’s physical presence helps our kids develop a sense of their importance and their value. Smile and let your eyes light up when they enter the room. Set aside other things whenever possible to show them they are worthy of your undivided attention. Speak Affirmation Not only does showing affection build a sense of value but so do words of affirmation. Kids need our affection...