How to raise children’s self-esteem? Comment on Orth and Robins (2022).

Abstract

Since the 1960s, self-esteem has become a cornerstone of Western child-rearing. After reviewing a large body of rigorous longitudinal research, Orth and Robins (2022) conclude that self-esteem brings modest but significant benefits across all ages. However, the authors did not intend to suggest strategies for raising children’s self-esteem. The aim of my commentary is to identify such strategies. Without guidance on how to raise children’s self-esteem safely and sustainably, well-intentioned strategies, such as inflated praise, may inadvertently undermine self-esteem or even breed narcissism. Instead, interventions should be based on a theoretically informed and empirically supported understanding of the determinants of self-esteem. By targeting these determinants, interventions may be able to raise children’s self-esteem safely (i.e., without breeding narcissism) and sustainably (i.e., leading to lasting improvements in self-esteem and its presumed outcomes). Evaluating these interventions through randomized controlled trials will help build a theory of when and why self-esteem interventions work. Ultimately, this work will provide nuanced and dependable guidance to parents, teachers, and professionals on how to raise children’s self-esteem.

Early physiological indicators of narcissism and self‐esteem in children

“…Promoting children's self‐esteem is widely seen as an important societal goal (Brummelman, 2022; Orth & Robins, 2014), but experts have voiced concern that promoting self‐esteem can lead to narcissism. In the current work, we provide evidence for the notion that narcissism and self‐esteem are fundamentally distinct.…”

The promise of an identity-based self-affirmation intervention in protecting against self-esteem declines at the high school transition.

“…In turn, identifying methods for mitigating declines in self-esteem is essential for setting adolescents on positive developmental trajectories, particularly during times of change. Indeed, recent calls have been made to develop interventions that can target and increase adolescent self-esteem (Brummelman, 2022).…”

The benefits of self-esteem: Reply to Krueger et al. (2022) and Brummelman (2022).

“…We maintain that there is now a large body of evidence from meta-analyses and large-scale longitudinal studies demonstrating that high self-esteem has adaptive consequences for social relationships, school, work, mental health, physical health, and antisocial behavior. Brummelman (2022) presents a compelling theoretical framework that can guide the design of interventions to improve children’s self-esteem. We agree with his concerns about the need for randomized controlled trials to evaluate the efficacy of self-esteem interventions and the importance of ensuring that children’s self-esteem can be raised without causing them to become narcissistic.…”

“…Brummelman (2022) uses our finding that self-esteem has benefits in multiple life domains as a launching point for outlining how to design effective interventions to improve children’s self-esteem. We are particularly impressed by his theoretically informed approach to designing interventions (Brummelman & Sedikides, 2020), and we agree with his concerns about the need for randomized controlled trials to evaluate interventions and the importance of ensuring that children’s self-esteem can be raised without causing them to become narcissistic.…”