Often, the beliefs you have about yourself come from early life experiences. Learning happens in a variety of ways. Direct encounters, the media, witnessing what others do, and listening to what others say can all contribute to the learning process. This continues throughout life, although self-perceptions and aspects of our personality are mostly formed earlier in life. This means that your childhood experiences, family, culture, the schools you attended, and the interactions you had with your classmates probably shaped your deeply held attitudes and opinions about yourself.

If you have developed particularly negative thoughts and beliefs about yourself, you have probably had several negative experiences that have led to it. Take a moment to think of any experiences or events, both positive and negative, that have clearly shaped how you see yourself today. What comes to mind? Are the memories mainly pleasant or unpleasant? How have these life events shaped who you are? Let’s talk about some common negative childhood experiences that can damage self-esteem.

Punishment, neglect, or abuse

Children who are mistreated, punished frequently, neglected, abandoned, or abused often experience an array of psychological problems later in life. These children likely grow up believing very negative things about themselves, which undoubtedly takes a huge toll on their self-esteem.

Not living up to parents’ standards

Punishment doesn’t necessarily have to be physical. Verbal criticism can also take a toll on self-esteem. For instance, if your parents always criticized you as a child for your weaknesses, instead of acknowledging your strengths, you are more likely to have grown up focusing on your flaws and holding negative views of yourself.

Being the odd one out

Have you ever felt like you are the odd one out in your family, school, or friendship group? Being different is completely okay. After all, we are all unique in our own ways. However, being different may not work out well for some children. These children may grow up overshadowed by their other siblings, classmates, or friends. Their talents and positive attributes may go unacknowledged, unnoticed or even ridiculed. In the long run, children who feel overshadowed and ignored, grow up with negative beliefs about themselves such as “I’m weird” or “I’m inferior”. 

Children need praise for their good behavior, as this provides them with motivation and helps them develop important life skills. Without this praise, children can feel unworthy.

Not fitting into beauty standards

Most children get really concerned with the way they look during late childhood and adolescence. They become influenced by beauty standards that are promoted in the media or even by their family or peers. This becomes problematic when these standards are not realistic or even healthy. As a result, many children grow up thinking they are unattractive or even unlikeable.

Family’s place in society

The way your family is seen or treated by others in society can influence your self-esteem or the way you see yourself and your value. For instance, if your family or the group you belong to is or has been subjected to racism, prejudice, or hostility, you are more likely to have damaged self-esteem.

Childhood trauma

Childhood trauma can include a range of extreme experiences such as psychological trauma, neglect, abandonment, sexual abuse, physical abuse, witnessing the abuse of a sibling or parent, or having a mentally ill parent. It can also involve bullying and chronic stress due to social and environmental factors (e.g. parental conflict, family financial stress etc.). These events can significantly damage a child’s self-esteem. Research has indicated that childhood trauma survivors often grow up with negative feelings like shame, guilt, and poor self-image.

Furthermore, childhood trauma is also a risk factor for mental illness. Evidence has shown that people with histories of childhood trauma are significantly more likely to develop a mental disorder, in comparison to others.

Negative core beliefs

The experiences we talked about in the previous section were all things that occurred during childhood. This brings us to an age-old question in the field of mental health, that is,‘why and how does the damage from negative childhood experiences persist, even when the situations and problems change’. In other words, why might someone with childhood trauma, who goes on to lead a successful work and family life, still feel inadequate and unlovable?

A major reason for this is the concept of negative core beliefs. These are conclusions about ourselves that we arrived at when we were young, largely as a result of what we went through. For instance, a child who has been criticized a lot would most likely develop the core belief “I am not good enough”. This will make sense to them during that time because they are unable to think of any other explanation for why they are being criticized. Subsequently, negative core beliefs like this one get strongly implanted into the child’s mind and persist into adulthood unless challenged. Ultimately, they become evaluations of self-worth and self-esteem.

Some common examples of negative core beliefs are:

• “I am ugly”.
• “I am not good enough”
• ”I am incompetent”
• “I am unlovable”
• ”I am unimportant”