Self-Awareness

A concept related to self-esteem is self-awareness. It emerges between fifteen and eighteen months and is the realization that one's existence and behavior are separate from other people and things. The roots of self-esteem begin in infancy with the form of attachment. Attachment is the strong, warm ties we have with the special people in our lives. When children have a healthy attachment to a parent, the attachment serves as the beginning of self-esteem as children learn they're safe with the parent who they have a healthy attachment to.

The idea of self-concept is defined as an individual's awareness of a person's identity from others. It's during infancy children develop a sense of their separate outlook different to their environment and others but also a sense of ability to influence others and their environment.

When my child was this age she had a healthy attachment to me which helped contribute to her healthy self-esteem. Where she knew she could be herself, that she would be taken care of and loved and supported this helped her have the self-esteem to try new things even when she was scared. She was scared to start preschool but as we talked about it, what to expect, about the friends she would find this helped relieve the anxiety she had about starting preschool.

My child's self-esteem grew as the learned that it was all right to have a different point of view from me. My child liked to sleep with books at night. Each night she picked out 2-3 books to sleep with and she would do it at nap time too. My point of view was that the books be on the book shelf while she slept but I respected her identity that is different than mine and allowed her to pick 2-3 books to sleep with. This helped develop her self-esteem as she learned her point of view would be respected and she would be allowed to make choices according to her point of view and those choices would within reason be respected. This helped her realize she could influence me and the environment she slept in.

It's not always easy to develop this part of self-esteem. We as parents think we don't want our children to do something like sleep with their books however, my point of view was always do I have a legitimate reason to tell my child no. If I didn't I wouldn't tell her no but I would possibly put a limit on it such as picking no more than 3 books to sleep with. When children know they can control their environment in this way and influence parents and siblings in such a way it gives them the control over their lives that they need but also realizing their parents are in charge.