Family Life Education Series
Empower Your Children with Unshakeable Self-value

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Self-value is the foundation of our personality and is the centre component of 'personality functioning' in the ICAN model (please refer to issue 749 or 739 of OffBeat). It determines how we see our life experience and the world. People with positive self-value see failure and setback as their challenge. They hold an optimistic view about the world. Self-value also affects our emotion and behaviour. People with positive self-value are usually happy and relaxed and they are in control of their behaviour. People who doubt their self-value are often pessimistic about themselves and about the world. They are more likely to suffer from emotional turmoil and more likely to have problematic behaviour.

Children acquire concepts about themselves through their relationship and interaction with their parents. There are two most important methods to empower your children with unshakeable 'self-value'. First, give your children 'unconditional acceptance'. This is the most important, the easiest and yet is often also the most difficult act of parents to their children. Many parents' acceptance of their children is 'conditional'. They say, verbally or in their attitude, 'If you do as I tell you and if you are good, Daddy and Mummy will love you!' For example, good academic grades and good conduct become the yardstick for parental acceptance. These children learn over the years to 'measure' their self-value by their achievement or performance. Their self-value hence goes up and down with their achievement and performance. In future, when they need their self-value most, for example, when they face setback or failure in life, their self-value often fails them because it has already been shattered by their setback and failure.

Second, help children acquire the 'perfection driven' rather than 'performance driven' attitude to life. 'Perfection driven' means the motivation to better oneself. 'Performance driven' means the drive to get better performance, for example, better grades, higher ranks and more salary. Let's take the athletic field as an example, 'performance driven' athletes compete with others whereas 'perfection driven' athletes compete with themselves. 'Perfection driven' individuals never lose. Even if they do not reach their intended mountain top, they can still face up to themselves because they know they have tried and they have enjoyed the process of trying. 'Performance driven' individuals are usually only happy if they reach their target performance and their happiness is brief as they often do not enjoy the process. 'Perfection driven' individuals usually have much more solid self-value as they accept themselves and their imperfection, and they are continuously trying to better themselves. 'Performance driven' individuals often measure their self-value by their performance and hence their self-value goes up and down with their performance.

In this era of change and competition, stress and crisis, many people have become vulnerable. Unshakeable self-value is the foundation of resilience.

- From Welfare Services Group -