When I ask my kids, “What is self-worth?” They will say, “Well, it’s how I feel about myself.” “It’s how I love myself.” “It’s what I think about myself.” All of that yes and no? How do you achieve it? Do you really know what self-worth means? Then I asked them, “How do you know you matter? Who do you matter to?” All of a sudden, they were able to say, “I matter to my mom, my dad, my siblings, my friends, my job, and my teachers.” So they started to look at all the roles that they have in their life and started to see that they matter in each of those roles, that in every area of their life, if they weren’t there, something would be missing. There would be nobody to take on their role, and they matter. If I said, How much does this cup cost? like, What’s the worth of this cup? Some might say it depends. It depends on what’s in it, if I’m thirsty, and on the cost.
If it’s 50 bucks and you haven’t had a drink in five days and it’s full of water, would that cup of water be worth fifty dollars? Of course it would be. So it’s when it matters, and that’s the same thing about our worth. If we could let our kids know where they matter, would we take off the labels of depression or anxiety? Could this help them with the certainty that they need each and every day when they go out that door to meet their social peers? If they knew that they mattered in areas of their lives, would they do less compared to other kids? I’m curious: do you know your self-worth? Do you know where you matter?
If we as parents know our worth and are able to display it to them and talk about why we matter, we’re giving them permission to know their worth as well. I made up this quote years ago, and it rings more true today than it did the day I made it up. I said, “No one could take away your worth if you knew how much you were worth.”
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