Building Family Esteem by Treasuring Your Children 

Writing affirmations with the development of children in mind is a great way to enhance their learning and increase their vocabulary.  A child's language base will be one of empowerment and positive feelings. Affirmations also makes children feel supported, loved and praised when you build on their self-esteem in this way.  The time old belief that loving yourself is wrong has been disproved many times over.  Don’t worry about your child being arrogant or a show-off.  It is a great sign of your parenting abilities if your child is confident and happy enough to state their good points and it will make their ride through life much easier.  The development of child studies in these areas are showing more evidence to support this all the time.

Written affirmations based on the "I Treasure You" approach work best for building family esteem when children are able to read and understand the words. Therefore, a written note should contain words that the child or teen can understand. A second grader's vocabulary will be different from that of a six grader or a teenager. Each age has its own needs for encouragement, love and support. Think of an "I Treasure You" note like a spoken compliment that is written down. If you talk to your children on their level, then write down those same words in a note that they can read and keep.

You want your children to believe in positive results.  If you don’t become self-aware of how you are acting and what you are saying around your children, they could develop a tendency to worry.  Worrying is when someone dwells or meditates on the possible negative outcomes of a situation and it isn’t good for us mentally, physically or spiritually.  If you give your child a good positive self-image, they will be inclined to focus more on positive outcomes and ways to work toward achieving them.

Negative thoughts are like a rash that spreads through the mind.  Once one starts, it sets off another and so on and so forth.  If a child develops negative thinking patterns, it can lead to depression and anxiety.  Once a person has developed a negative way of thinking and a poor self-image, it is a slow process to turn it around.  By using affirmations through their childhood, you are almost guaranteed this won't happen.

This doesn't mean you have your child live in fairy land.  You teach them with your own actions and example that no matter what life throws your way, you can handle it.  Use your own affirmations around them and show that you can feel a full spectrum of emotions and be okay with it.  Be optimistic and teach them if things don’t go your way, there is a reason for it and you know something better is coming along.  Teach your children that there are lessons to be learned from everything in life and they can turn any situation into a good one.

Humans are becoming increasingly aware that what we think, we create.  We want to teach our children to focus on the possibilities not the impossible and to strive for living a life based on wholeness and abundance, not dwell on how difficult it can be to get there.  Writing affirmations with your child will ensure they have the best possible opportunities created by the power of positive thinking.  This is an important basis for them to fall back on anytime throughout the rest of their lives and is surely the best gift a parent can give. 

Link to next silo: Building Self Esteem in Children