Motherhood – Self-esteem

Talks

Quotes

One day, Thomas Edison came home and gave a paper to his mother. He told her, “My teacher gave this paper to me and told me to only give it to my mother.”
His mother’s eyes were tearful as she read the letter out loud to her child: “Your son is a genius. This school is too small for him and doesn’t have enough good teachers for training him. Please teach him yourself.”

After many, many years, Edison’s mother died, and he had become one of the greatest inventors of the century. One day he began looking through old family things. Suddenly he saw a folded paper in the corner of a drawer in a desk. He took it and opened it up. On the paper was written: “Your son is addled [mentally ill]. We won’t let him come to school any more.”

Edison cried for hours and then he wrote in his diary: “Thomas Alva Edison was an addled child that, by a hero mother, became the genius of the century.” 

“Many parents have trouble building their children’s self-esteem because they themselves are so insecure.  Their interactions with a child are calculated to feed their own egos instead of the child’s. They are disappointed when the child fails in public because they feel it makes them look bad.  This is a dangerous position for a mother to be in.  For us to avoid these snares, our self-esteem must be secure enough that we are not dependent upon our children to feed our egos.  We must not be hurt when our children deflate us.” (Sherri Johnson, Spiritually Centered Motherhood, pg. 25)

“Believe in yourself.  Our children inherit the color of our eyes and the shape of our noses.  They also inherit our doubts and insecurities, especially those we hold against ourselves.  When your child hears you say that you’re stupid or fat or not good enough, something in that tender, spongelike soul begins to wonder about intelligence, body image, and worth.

You are a daughter of God.  He says you’re good enough, so act like it.  Stand tall and strong against the storms with which Satan bludgeons you.  God loves you and stands ready to help you. 

One of the most important things you can do as a mother is to love your own life.  Your dreams matter, and you are entitled to see them fulfilled.  Yes, being a mother requires great sacrifice, but you are meant to live for your own joy and development.  You’re not just here to facilitate your child’s happiness, but your own.  Develop the gifts God has given you.  Seek to develop new talents.  Experience every good thing you can.  Cultivate friendships and make memories that make you a mother with more to offer your child.” The Measure of a Mother’s Heart by Toni Sorenson pg 14-15.

Carol Dweck once said, “If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning.  That way, their children don’t have to be slaves of praise.  They will have a lifelong way to build and repair their own confidence.

We are literally mirrors for our children and our words and behavior contribute significantly to their self-image. “What you believe about your child will be the greatest influence in that child’s life.  There is an old adage that says if you tell a girl she is beautiful, she will believe it for a moment – but if you tell her that she’s ugly, she’ll believe it forever.” (The Measure of a Mother’s Heart by Toni Sorenson pg 14-15) Our children see themselves as we see them.  For that reason, it is imperative that we see our children as God sees them – their full potential.

From the first day of life a child begins to form an opinion of how much his parents love him, of how much he is wanted or valued.  As he grows the treatment he receives continues to say either “You are important to me” or “You are not worth my time and attention.” (Sherri Johnson, Spiritually Centered Motherhood, pg. 25)

“Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.”- Thomas S. Monson

Mary Ellen Edmunds shared the following story. There was once a family on a vacation, which stopped at a restaurant for dinner one day.  A waitress came to take orders.  As she was going around the table she came to a little boy and asked, “And what would you like?”  He looked at his mother briefly, and said enthusiastically, “I’d like a hot dog!”  Quickly his mother said, “Oh no, he’ll just have what the rest of us are having.”  A pause, then the waitress said to the boy, “and what would you like on your hot dog?”  He again glanced at his mother, and said, “Ketchup and mustard!”  The waitress wrote it down, took the other orders, and left.  The little boy was amazed, and looked at his mother and exclaimed, “She thinks I’m real!!”

What can we do to make children feel important? 

• Always call children by their name whether they are your own children, neighbors or primary children in your ward. 
• Take time to be a room mother at your child’s school or eat lunch with them in the cafeteria.
• Schedule a regular one-on-one date night with your children.

• Sincerely appreciate gifts from children.  Put dandelions in a vase each time.  When they make an art project, ask them questions about it and put it on the fridge.
• Always have a photograph of the family and individual children in a visible place in your home.

Each time you do something for children that they are capable of doing themselves, you rob them of self-esteem. Children feel pride when they can dress themselves, feed themselves, clean their room, etc.  Oftentimes we think we are doing our children a favor by not requiring them to do chores.  And yet, think of a basketball team.  Those who sit on the bench and never play generally don’t have a high self-esteem. They want to contribute, to be part of the team.  Children need to feel that their contributions to the family are vital, that we couldn’t do it without them.  – Shannon Williams

If you treat a man as he is he will remain as he is, but if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be, and could be, he will become what he ought to be, and should be. – Goethe

A man once asked a patriarch what he had learned from giving nearly a thousand patriarchal blessings.  The man replied, “The Lord is very positive.  There are a lot of things he could say to teenagers, but he puts is in a positive way.”  We as parents need to do the same.