Self-Esteem Issues… in Kindergarten

Studies have shown that the best predictor of young children’s self-esteem (i.e. how positively or negatively they view themselves) is the quality of the relationship they have with their mother. The quality of the relationship they have with their father predicts their social confidence and initiative.

For example, in 1999, Karine Verschueren and Alfons Marcoen (1999) ‘Representation of Self and Socioemotional Competence in Kindergartners: Differential and Combined Effects of Attachment to Mother and to Father’, Child Development, January/February 1999, Volume 70, Number 1, Pages 183-201.Karine Verschueren & Alfons Marcoen studied eighty children, (forty girls and forty boys), between the ages of four-and-a-half and six-and-a-half years old, who had lived with both parents from birth. They collected data about three aspects of the children’s lives and behaviour:

The researchers compared their findings across the three areas, to see whether there was a connection between the quality of children’s relationships with each parent and their social skills and self-esteem. This is what they found:

Children who had a close, positive relationship with both parents:

• Got along better with the other children and were more popular
• Were better adjusted to the stresses of school
• Showed higher self-esteem and less anxious/withdrawn behaviour than children who had a negative relationship with both parents

Children who had a close, positive relationship only with their mother:

• Had higher self-esteem than children whose relationship with their mother was more negative. They tended to view themselves more positively.
• The quality of their relationship with their father did NOT really predict levels of self esteem

Children who had a close, positive relationship only with their father:

• Had higher self-confidence, initiative and independence in their approach to the world than children whose relationship with their father was more negative
• And showed less anxious/withdrawn behaviour than children whose relationship was more negative
• The quality of their relationship with their mother did NOT predict either of these very much

This is just one study and we can’t draw cast-iron conclusions or say that parental relationships definitely caused the children’s attitudes and behaviour. But I found it really interesting because the relationship those children had with both parents was correlated with how they felt and behaved from a very early age, even while they were at school and out of sight of their parents.

Even more intriguing… the relationship with each parent correlated with different aspects of the children’s psychological wellbeing (self-esteem, self-confidence, anxiety and relationships with other children). Having a positive relationship with just one of their parents protected the children in some ways but wasn’t sufficient to compensate for a poor or absent relationship with the other.