Parents As Mirrors

You are the whole world to a baby – the source of all comfort and security, the banishers of fears and pain. Every waking hour he learns about himself from you. You are the mirror that shows this new person who he is.

From you smile a baby learns that he is delightful, from your touch a baby learns that he is safe. From your responsiveness to his crying, a baby learns that he effective and important. These are the first lessons about his worth and the building blocks of self esteem.

Babies who are not comforted, who are not spoken to, rocked, and loved, learn other lessons about their worth. They learn that their cries of distress don’t bring relief. They learn helplessness. They learn they are not important. These are the first lessons in poor self-esteem.

As they grow older, children will have other mirrors that show them who they are. Teachers, friends, and sitters will all perform their role, but a child will return to the reflection in the mirror that his parents held for this sense of goodness, importance, and basic worth.

Providing a positive mirror for your children does not mean that you approve of everything that they do or that you let them run the family. There is a way to raise socialized, reasonable children with strong self-esteem. It requires that you look at your child, look at yourself and look at your patterns of communication.