Discuss the emergence of self-esteem in early childhood. How can adults promote high self-esteem?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: One aspect of self-concept that emerges in early childhood is self-esteem—the judgments we make about our own worth and the feelings associated with those judgments. These evaluations are among the most important aspects of self-development because they affect our emotional experiences, future behavior, and long-term psychological adjustment.
By age 4, preschoolers have several self-judgments—for example, about learning things in school, making friends, getting along with parents, and treating others kindly. But they lack the cognitive maturity to combine these evaluations into a global sense of self-esteem. Also, because they have difficulty distinguishing between their desired and their actual competence, they usually rate their own ability as extremely high and underestimate task difficulty. High self-esteem contributes greatly to preschoolers’ initiative during a period in which they must master many new skills.
By age 3, children whose parents patiently encourage while offering information about how to succeed are enthusiastic and highly motivated. In contrast, children whose parents criticize their worth and performance give up easily when faced with challenges and express shame and despondency after failing. Adults can avoid promoting these self-defeating reactions by adjusting their expectations to children’s capacities, scaffolding children’s attempts at difficult tasks, and pointing out effort and improvement in children’s behavior.