Dogged by low self-esteem

Published 3:12 pm Tuesday, December 6, 2005

I think I may moonlight as a dog shrink. I’m convinced I’ve greatly improved the self-esteem of our black Lab. Since I was responsible for contributing to Smokey’s low self-image, I feel good that I have now helped restore it.

Though Smokey is fully grown, weighing in at a healthy 90 pounds, he’s just a little more than one year old. When he was a pup, I had high expectations that I could have as much success training him as I had training our first dog, Dixie, a beautiful female chocolate Lab. I studied training videos and found that the tips worked well. In addition to the inbred retrieving instincts, I had Dixie well trained in nine months. With one notch in my belt, I began training Smokey with confidence that I could do even better. One problem — Smokey had a mind of his own. Some have said, “He’s a male; they are more hardheaded.” Surely not.

I’ll spare you the details in order to spare myself the embarrassment of my failures. I will tell you that at times I lost my patience with Smokey and he lost trust in me. There were times Smokey wouldn’t even retrieve for me. You’ve got to be doing something terribly wrong to curb the retrieving instincts of a Labrador.

After repenting of my own hardheadedness, I began to work with Smokey differently than I worked with Dixie. I learned the hard way that dogs, like children, need to be treated as individuals. Each has a different temperament and a different personality. Each has different interests and each should be praised and disciplined, but not always in the same way.

Even so, I’ve still considered Dixie to be more talented. For example, I taught Dixie how to catch a frisbee. She loves to chase a frisbee. Her speed is remarkable. Not only will she catch one frisbee, but she will catch another frisbee in her mouth without dropping the first one. Later I added a third. It’s amazing to see that dog catch three frisbees, one after the other, without dropping any of them.

Smokey doesn’t have a chance to catch a frisbee with Dixie in the yard. She outruns him to everything. Eventually, Smokey lost interest in retrieving and resigned himself to poaching. He’d wait until Dixie caught the frisbee; then he’d chase her and grab the frisbee while she still held it in her mouth. The two dogs then galloped side by side sharing one frisbee. Of course, half the time he couldn’t catch her even to share the prize. Poor dog.

Parents understand this scenario. Parents with more than one child often lament instead of celebrate the differences in their children. One child is often an over-achiever with outstanding qualities: disciplined, obedient, well-mannered, makes straight A’s, follows instructions, even- tempered, excels in sports, music, or anything she wants to do. The other child seems satisfied with mediocrity. He’s high-spirited but hardheaded. He has to be told to complete tasks more than once. He gets into trouble. He doesn’t seem to excel at anything. It’s not surprising that the self-esteem of this child is low. In many cases this is the younger child. He’s always compared to his older sibling. He feels the bar has been set too high. No matter how hard he strives, he doesn’t feel he can measure up to the one who’s come before him.

Typically, parents make comparisons themselves. That’s natural. What’s harmful is parents’ showing favoritism. Children quickly pick up on a parent’s actions and words that favor one child over another. It’s easy for parents to focus on the success of the over-achiever. Children notice. They often equate time spent with them with how much they are loved. If a parent is always attending a ball game, concert, or school function of one child, but doesn’t spend an equal amount of time with the other, the child will notice the difference. The unequal time says to the child that he or she is unequal in importance. In addition, parents sometimes make damaging comments: “Why can’t you be more like your sister? If you’d apply yourself like your brother you’d be just as good.” Self-esteem plummets.

Not long ago I took our dogs out for their daily exercise. For some reason I picked up an old tennis ball along with the frisbees. I threw the frisbee for Dixie and I threw the ball for Smokey. I’d never seen him run so fast and be so excited about retrieving. For the first time, Smokey was retrieving without having to compete with Dixie. Dixie couldn’t care less about the tennis ball.

I can’t prove it but I think Smokey feels better about himself now. I think I’ve improved his self-esteem. He certainly is excited about retrieving again. He’s even stopped poaching. He doesn’t need to. He has his own interest and he knows that I’m excited about his interest, too.

That’s not a bad lesson to remember as a parent.

When a child finds an interest, if it’s moral, parents should feed it. More importantly, parents should act interested and be involved with their child in all of their chosen activities.

As much as possible, parents should seek to balance their time with their children and refrain from making damaging verbal comparisons to other siblings. If one child is dogged by low self-esteem, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for parents to look hard at their training techniques. Working with my dogs taught me that sometimes the trainer is partly responsible.



The Rev. Michael Helms is pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Moultrie.