Hello and welcome to the Village Voice.

Parenting Beyond Discipline, the place to learn about all things parenting and get your questions answered.

I'm your host, Aaron Royer Azrelant. Today, I'm talking about self-esteem,

what it is and how we can help our kids develop true, solid self-esteem. First, I'll cover some

statistics on self-esteem as it relates to our kids. Talk about the definition, the benefits, and where self-esteem comes from.

Then it will quickly share the shift in society that happened with trying to build self-esteem

that went awry and what we can do to fix it, including some ways to foster a true, healthy sense

of self-esteem in our kids. First, some statistics on self-esteem.

Research shows that on average, girls' self-esteem peaks at age nine. Nine. As a mom of a daughter,

this is truly frightening to me. But looking back at my own life, this probably held true for me personally,

up until my mid-20s. I then spent my mid-20s and even into my early 30s working hard to turn

this all around. I don't want my daughter to have to do that. I want her to have the time and the confidence

to go out and do great things rather than spending those years trying to build herself up.

More than twice as many girls with low self-esteem than those with healthy self-esteem

engage in sex prior to ninth grade, twice as many.

70% of girls struggle with low self-esteem in the areas of body image, school performance,

and or peer and family relationships. 70% seven out of 10 girls struggle with low self-esteem.

75% of girls with low self-esteem engage in negative activities such as bullying,

smoking, drinking, self-harming, and or disordered eating. These are things like binging and purging

or severe food restriction. While self-esteem seems to affect girls more prevalently than boys,

self-esteem issues in boys have tripled from 15% to 45% in recent years. That's nearly half of all boys. These are some

pretty alarming statistics that I would really like to see be reversed. The definition of

...