When my dad would say - and it was paraphrasing when I said *no one in our family chickened out* but when my dad would ask us to live up to the family values that would give us more faith in ourselves. It would make us think I can do this because I'm made of the same stuff that the others who wouldn't give in are made of. It's kind of like "believe in yourself" but if you are just a kid of 8 there's not much to believe in. Whereas you are a member of a family/tribe that are capable and can do things is a much stronger and more reinforcing statement to make.
I definitely do believe that people that were essentially *lied* to as kids by families that were overly positive and supportive - in other words glossed over their failings and acted like everything was great - have no self esteem. I think this is because they do know their flaws and because no-one is being honest about their flaws then how do they know they're being honest about their merits?
Children do know the difference between praise that is worth something and praise that is just flannel. They might wonder why you feel like they need flannel. It might make them think they are too weak to cope with the truth, which is undermining rather than supportive.
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
