Help! My boy doesn't like himself. Where do I start?

We get this question a lot so we wanted to share the answer with everyone.  You can download your free copy of the strengths list here.

Transcript

My boy doesn’t like himself. Where do I start? The easiest place to start, and we talk about this, is getting the foundation of balance right, make sure he has enough sleep, make sure he is eating a balanced diet, make sure he's not over-scheduled and he has time to play. Any problem that your boy might be facing, whether it be behaviour, academic achievement, friendship skills, emotional regulation, you start by getting that right, and then you build from there. And by enough sleep, that's kind of a lot more than what we often think. Often we kind of prioritize everything else aside from sleep. Home work is more important, academics, but often not. The other thing about not liking themselves is that particularly with boys, we think that the way we raise our boys to like themselves is to chisel off all their flaws, fix all the things that are wrong with them. Then they'll feel good about themselves and then they'll like themselves. That's not how it works. The way you raise a boy to feel good about himself is to focus on all the things he can do rather than on the things he can't. So we all desperately need to know that we are good at something. All children, all adults. Your boy has strength, make sure he knows what they are, focus your attention on his strengths, and spend most of your time helping him develop his strengths rather than on correcting his weaknesses because then that's how he can see himself. I'm a capable person rather than I suck at all these things.