Customer Reviews

Self-Esteem Revolutions in Children: Understanding and Managing the Critical Transitions in Your Child's Life

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This book makes some very accurate and useful observations, chief among them:

Self-esteem comes from tangible experiences, not just touchy-feely, feel-good platitudes mouthed by adults -- children see through those.

Each child has a "Great Evaluator" (internal critic) that is always monitoring the child's performance and pushing for improvement. This is necessary for the child to develop, but sometimes this internal critic can be misled and a child can become too self-critical.

Life is not always supposed to be too comfortable for kids -- some discomfort is necessary for growth. Likewise, a parent's job is not always to make a kid feel good.

The author then goes on to elaborate on each of these and his other observations, giving specific advice to parents on how help the child accurately see themselves and build real, not phony, self-esteem.

The book is divided into three main parts and goes into detail on why self-esteem is important. I felt this was information I already knew. However, the most helpful part of the book was the last section where it discussed how to manage your childs self-esteem.

Very helpful in terms of understanding child development, children's needs and particularly vulnerable times for them. I liked Phelan's practical approach, very down to earth - there is no way you can make a child have good self esteem. He blows many myths out of the water and hopefully makes it much less threatening to be parents, it is not "all your fault".