Helping Kids Develop Self-Love: A Parent Guide
Every February, as Valentine's Day rolls around, people of all ages partake in the cherished tradition of expressing love and appreciation for those dear to them. From early childhood, children engage in heartwarming exchanges, exchanging cards, notes, and even small tokens of affection to demonstrate their care. While this practice brings joy to many, imagine the transformative power of extending that love and validation toward ourselves. What if we could teach our children to embrace self-love and validation, empowering them to treat themselves with the same kindness they show their friends, classmates, and loved ones?
Let’s talk about self-love and self-validation.
Self-love, often referred to as self-compassion, is a state of appreciation for oneself that involves treating the self with kindness, understanding, and mindful awareness. Self-love means meeting yourself with warmth and compassion, no matter the circumstance.
Self-validation is the process of accepting your own experiences in the world. It is perceiving your own thoughts, feelings, or actions as understandable, acceptable, or making sense in a particular situation. This involves mindfully accepting your own thoughts, emotions, and internal experiences. Self-validation helps us to feel known, understood, and fully accepted within ourselves.
The research shows that self-compassion and self-validation help humans be more resilient in facing challenges or adversity. When faced with a challenging or difficult experience, self-compassion and self-validation help us cope more effectively and recover more quickly. Imagine going through something painful or difficult and being faced with the pain of self-criticism in addition to the pain you are already experiencing. Now imagine being met with warmth, compassion, and validation from yourself in the face of something difficult. People of all ages can benefit from self-compassion and self-validation.
Can self-love and self-validation really be taught?
Absolutely! Some of us come into the world with environmental experiences and biology that make it easy to engage in self-compassion and self-validation. But for many people, environmental circumstances, systemic oppression, biology, and social messaging make it difficult to engage in self-love without direct learning and practice. The good news is that self-compassion and self-validation can be learned and cultivated over time!
So, how can you cultivate self-compassion and self-validation within your child?
Parents are often eager to learn how to cultivate helpful wellness skills or behaviors in their children. The truth is that fostering your child’s self-compassion and self-validation skills starts with honing your own self-compassion and self-validation skills. Children learn from their parents through observational learning, so modeling the behaviors you would like to see in your child is essential. Parents are constantly modeling behaviors for their children, whether they realize it or not. Perhaps you can recall a time you have modeled manners for your child, such as saying “please” or “thank you” or holding the door for someone. Just as you may have worked to foster your child’s manners, modeling is an amazing way to foster your child’s sense of self-compassion and self-validation.
Modeling Self-Compassion For Your Child
Acknowledgment Of Your Own Emotions
When we acknowledge our own emotions, we mindfully notice them and allow them to be there, regardless of the emotion. Noticing and naming your emotions is a mindful way to acknowledge your internal experience. You can even practice self-validation at the same time by acknowledging that your emotions make sense or are understandable in the moment!
Modeling Moment: You are caught up in the after-school frenzy of coats, backpacks, lunch boxes, and kids talking over each other to ask about what’s for snack and share about their day at school. You are overwhelmed, overstimulated, and frankly, a bit frustrated. You speak calmly to yourself in front of your children and say aloud, “Wow, I’m feeling overwhelmed right now. It makes sense that I’m overwhelmed - there’s a lot going on.”
2. Self-Kindness
Self-kindness is all about being understanding and kind to yourself even when you fail, fall short, or things do not go as planned. Rather than subjecting yourself to the pain of judgment or self-criticism, you can meet yourself with self-kindness and model this skill in front of your child.
Modeling Moment: You are sitting at the breakfast table with your family. As you reach across the table, you orange juice all over. Rather than saying, “Ugh, I’m so dumb!” or “Great, another mess to clean up!” you say, “It’s no wonder I spilled the juice - I’m still waking up! Nothing some paper towels can’t fix.”
3. Common Humanity
It is important to remember that our individual experiences are embedded in the broader human experience. We are not alone. In fact, other human beings often go through some of the same things we are and sometimes feel the same ways we feel. A sense of common humanity helps us to feel connected to those around us and more compassionate toward ourselves in the moment.
Modeling Moment: You are driving your child to school and running late. As you drive, you remind yourself how many other families in your school, town, or even state might be running late for school this morning. As you drive, you take a deep breath and say, “I bet there are a lot of other families running late for school this morning, too.”
Validation, Validation, Validation
Fostering your child’s self-validation skills begins with validating your child as their parent. Put simply, this means noticing and acknowledging your child’s emotions in the moment. Validation tells your child that their feelings make sense or are understandable in a given situation. By fully acknowledging your child’s emotional experience, you validate their emotion(s). When children receive external validation of their emotions, they experience their own emotions as real and understandable, enabling them to self-validate in the future.
There are many ways to practice validation as a parent. The 6 Levels of Validation (one of our wonderful Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) approaches) outlines different ways to provide your child with external validation, which helps them to trust their own internal experiences and better connect to their ability to self-validate. As we move through the levels, each becomes increasingly more impactful and deeply validating. Pro Tip: Always try to use the highest level possible!
Level 1 - Being present. Listening, watching, nodding, active listening, and avoiding multitasking…
Validation Moment: Your child is sharing about their experience at recess that day. You put your phone down and closely listen to what they are saying, nodding your head and communicating that you are paying attention and care about what they have to say.
Level 2 - Reflect back on what your child said clearly and accurately.
Validation Moment: Your child tells you about how they are nervous about tomorrow’s spelling test. You state, “You are nervous about the test”.
Level 3 - Articulate your child’s unverbalized experience by observing their behavior and non-verbal cues. Sometimes, this might feel like “guessing” what your child is thinking or feeling in the moment. When this is done well, some kids say this type of validation feels like you are a “mind reader”!
Validation Moment: Your child slams the door, throws their backpack on the ground, and lets out a loud “sigh”. You say “I can tell it was a hard day.”
Level 4 - Understanding your child’s behavior in terms of their history and past learning experiences.
Validation Moment: “The last time we were at the park a dog ran up behind you and really scared you. It makes sense that you’re feeling nervous to go to the park again today.”
Level 5 - Recognize that your child’s emotions make sense in the current context.
Validation Moment: “Of course, you feel nervous about trying out for the talent show. Auditioning for a talent show is nerve-wracking for anyone.”
Level 6 - Understanding your child’s experience on a radically genuine level. You share in their experience as equals and communicate that you understand their emotion(s) deeply.
Making Time For Practice
Like learning any new skill, fostering your child’s sense of self-compassion and self-validation (and your own, too!) takes time and practice. Making time for small daily practice moments will enable you and your child to lean into self-compassion and self-validation more and more. Try setting a mindful intention to model self-compassion or validate your child on a deeper level at least once daily. You may find that the more you practice, the more natural this becomes. You’ve got this!
Focusing on You Today
Let’s remember that today is Valentine’s Day! And although you might be focused on a fun and loving experience for your child, it’s just as important to direct some of that focus on a loving and supportive experience for you. Regardless of whether you buy into all the hearts and candy, make today the day you practice (really practice) self-compassion.
There are many ways to practice self-compassion. For instance, you can listen to a 5, 10, or 20-minute guided exercise with Dr. Kristen Neff. If you are like us at Mind, that might be a little inaccessible on your first go around. Don't worry; we provided a few other “foot in the door” options below.
Soothing Touch
This sounds a bit silly, but trust us, it’s one of the most well-liked and frequently used self-compassion skills by families at Mind. Place your hands on the back of your neck - or on your cheeks - or on your heart… any of these will do. Gently hold yourself and breathe for a few seconds. It’s a simple moment of caring for yourself - parenting is hard.
Self-Compassion Post-It (Alternative to Journaling)
Lots of people purport that journaling is where it’s at. Yet, we’ve found that many parents struggle to find the time or energy to journal. We’ve developed the post-it journal. Identify one difficult moment in your day. Grab three (3) post-its. Write what you notice about your emotions and internal experiences (without judgment) on post-it one. Write how many people in your neighborhood or in the city might be having this same experience on post-it two. Lastly, write a message of deep kindness and validation to yourself on post-it three. Read them to yourself. And if you want, post them to a cabinet, the computer, or another place to reconnect with self-compassion later.
Be Your Best Friend
Imagine your closest friend or sibling came to you with the same frustration, distress, or negative self-talk you are feeling today. What would you say? Most likely, you would NOT say, “That’s dumb, just move on” or “Just find the motivation, you’re so lazy.” No way! You would likely validate your friend’s emotions and provide a vote of confidence. Today, let’s treat ourselves like you treat your friend. FYI - This will feel really uncomfortable and “unnatural” at first.
Difficulty Getting Started?
Many folks read our articles and say, I loved it, and I’m going to start some of this when I’m “ready.” “Ready” is tricky because we often think we must feel ready to garner the motivation and energy for something BEFORE starting it. However, that’s not really the case. Think about it like this. Imagine you look out your apartment or house window and see your car. You think, “my car has so little gas - it’s almost empty.” Just wanting the car to have gas doesn’t really work. You wait around for a while to see if gas appears in the car, but it doesn’t. You have to get in and drive the car with the little gas left to the gas station and fill it up. Then you can drive it around. In other words, you have to do the things that matter to cultivate the energy to do the things that matter.
♥️ Wishing you and your family a meaningful and self-loving Valentine’s Day! ♥️
The team at Mind Chicago offers support to children, teens, young adults, and parents who are seeking to develop self-compassion and self-validation skills. For more support, reach out to Mind Chicago today at hello@mindchicago.com.
Authored by Hannah Romain, LCSW. Did you know that Hannah is a therapist AND an author? Don’t forget to check out her latest book, Overcoming Parental Anxiety: Rewire Your Brain to Worry Less and Enjoy Parenting More!
