Author and registered dietician, Cleanne Lynn Johnson’s latest book, Love My Colors978-1950088874, is a fictional autobiography. It follows the life of a dark-skinned girl, Natashia, who faces different struggles in life. Racism and colorism for one, from the day she was born. As a child, Natashia faced discrimination and was bullied for her the dark shade of her skin, it was darker than everyone around her. She struggled to love herself and the skin she was born in. Her mother raised her alone, while her father was absent from their lives most of the time. Natashia grew up and learned to love herself for her dark skin was as beautiful as gold, she knew that now. She moved to the US and built a life for herself.
Many girls around the world will find themselves in Natashia. The beauty standards of our society are blatantly racist, there is never enough diversity on television, in movies, or magazines. All you see are tall, skinny, and pale girls with blue or greens eyes everywhere. There is no diversity in children’s toys as well. Black kids cannot find themselves anywhere, there is no representation. In school, they are bullied and at home, someone in the family is making a colorist remark. All this has a huge impact on the child’s self-esteem. Parents need to help build self-esteem in their children. So, the outside world, no matter how it is, cannot tell your children to be insecure about the skin they were born in. According to Randi Chapnik Myers from Today’s Parents, here are a few tips to help build your child’s self-esteem:
· Step back
As it turns out, there are better ways to build self-esteem than heaping on praise for everything kids do—starting with helping them become competent in the world, says Jim Taylor, author of the book Your Kids Are Listening: Nine Messages They Need to Hear from You. To do so, though, you have to learn to step back and let your child take risks, make choices, solve problems, and stick with what they start.
· Let your child take healthy risks
Start by forcing yourself to stand back while your child takes healthy risks, says Victoria Sopik, CEO of Kids & Company, a corporate childcare service in Toronto, and a mother of eight. “To build confidence in the world, kids have to take chances, make choices, and take responsibility for them,” Sopik says. She sees too many parents trying to rescue their kids from failure all the time.
· Let kids make their own choices
When kids make their own age-appropriate choices, they feel more powerful, says Sopik, pointing out that kids as young as two can start considering the consequences of their decisions. Sopik always lets her kids decide on their own whether to wear a coat, hat, and mittens in winter. “Once they knew the difference between warm and cold, it was up to them. They should have control over their bodies and take responsibility for their choices,” she says.
· Let them help around the house
In building self-esteem, kids also need opportunities to demonstrate their competence and feel that their contribution is valuable, says Taylor. At home, that means asking them, even when they’re toddlers, to help with cooking, setting the table, and making beds.
· Encourage them to pursue their interests (fully)
Another surefire way to boost confidence in kids is to encourage them to take on tasks they show interest in, then make sure they follow through to completion. It doesn’t matter what the task—it could be anything from swimming laps to beating levels in video games. The point is for them to stick with what they start, so they feel that hit of accomplishment at the end.
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