Stephen R. Covey, bestselling author The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, writes in his books about the idea of an emotional bank account. The idea is that you have an emotional bank account with each person you are in a relationship with and the level of trust within a specific relationship depends on the bank account balance. If you have made a lot of withdrawals, for example by making mean comments, ignoring the person, or hurting them in some other way, your account balance will be very low or even overdrawn. In such a case, the level of trust in the relationship will be low or very low. If, on the other hand, you have made a lot of deposits, for example by actively listening to the person, encouraging them or keeping their promises, your account balance will be high. The level of trust between you and the other person will be high and the relationship will feel very fulfilling and solid.
You can use this simile of a bank account to teach children how to raise their self-esteem. Your self-esteem is essentially your relationship with yourself. If you have high self-esteem you feel good about yourself. You are confident in your ability to achieve goals, you like your appearance, and you feel like an intelligent, helpful, and kind person. To have high self esteem you need to have a high balance in your self esteem bank account. You get this by continually making deposits. Deposits into your self-esteem bank account can be to defend yourself when someone makes fun of you or to pat yourself on the back when you’ve done something good.
If you have low self-esteem, the balance in your self-esteem bank account will be low and you will have a bad relationship with yourself. You will think that you are stupid, ugly, boring and incapable of doing anything right. People who have this low self esteem have made too many withdrawals from their self esteem bank accounts. They may have been intimidated or criticized when they have made mistakes.
When you explain this to your kids, you can make a simple chart of their self-esteem bank account. Make two columns: one for deposits and one for withdrawals. For simplicity (especially when teaching young children who have not yet learned to calculate), let’s say that each deposit gives you one point and that for each withdrawal you have to subtract one point. Talk to the child about possible things she could do to make deposits in the self-esteem bank account. Also talk about things that count as withdrawals and for which the child would have to subtract points.
By turning this self-esteem-seeking exercise into a game, the child will be eager to earn as many points as possible in their self-esteem bank account. By seeking out and discussing with the parents positive things to do toward oneself, the child will learn what to do to increase her self-esteem even in the future. This exercise also makes children aware of the importance of self-esteem, that it is possible to raise one’s self-esteem and that one is responsible for it (a truth that unfortunately many adults have forgotten).
Liv Miyagawa- The Self Esteem Trainer