Why Some Children Suffer From Low Self Esteem
Comparisons With Others Somewhere between six and 11 years of age, children begin to actively compare themselves to their peers. This newfound social comparison occurs for both cognitive and social reasons. Feeling Incompetent As Erikson noted, some children come to realize that their efforts are not as good as those of their peers and begin to feel inferior. Notably, though, feeling incompetent does not universally lead to low self-esteem. If a child’s poor performance occurs in a domain he doesn’t value, such as athletics, his self-esteem is unlikely to be affected....