Protect Your Children from the Danger of Social Comparisons Now.
3 things you should teach your kids to help them boost their self-esteem from a very young age.
I read a terrifying study from last year on social comparisons among Gen Z across the UK.
As a mother, it frightens me to know that my daughter could ever want to end her life as a result of comparing herself with others on social media.
This is what Cybersmile found out in 2023:
AROUND 9 OUT OF 10 RESPONDED THAT THEY SEE THEMSELVES NEGATIVELY AND FEEL DISSATISFIED WITH THEIR LIVES.
3 IN 4 WANT TO CHANGE ASPECTS OF THEIR BODIES.
A VERY WORRYING 1 IN 7 HAVE THOUGHTS ABOUT ENDING THEIR LIVES AS A RESULT OF COMPARING THEMSELVES WITH OTHERS ON SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS.
If this doesnât give you chills down your spine, then I donât know what will.
After reading these crazy stats, I started wondering whether it would be realistic to expect my child to never compare herself to others.
It sounds silly and crazy but I really wondered, and this is what I found:
According to some studies, as much as 10 percent of our thoughts involve comparisons of some kind. Itâs natural and healthy as long as we know how to do it.
So I guess, sheâll always compare herself but Iâll need to teach her how to do it appropriately without hurting her self-esteem.
Can I just prevent her from using social media until she is an adult then? Just saying this out loud doesnât sound like a good idea. And it turns out the minimum age requirement on Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat is 13 which doesnât help.
It seems a bit early in my opinion but I also thought using a tablet before 2 years old was unreasonable and today itâs the only way I can get things done at home with my hyperactive 19-month-old.
I kept going down the rabbit hole of figuring out the role of social comparison in our lives and why someone like Roosevelt said that comparison is âthe thief of joyâ while there are plenty of sources saying that comparing ourselves can be very beneficial.
Firstly, I found out that there are 2 types of social comparisons: upward and downward comparisons.
Upward comparison is when you compare yourself to someone you perceive as superior in a particular area and downward is the opposite, you compare yourself to someone you consider inferior.
For this article, I am more interested in the upward comparison because the research has shown that thatâs the one leading to lower self-appraisal.
What factors can help us assess when upward comparison is beneficial and what are some foundations I should lay down for my daughter and frankly myself?
It turns out that comparing yourself to someone superior to you in a specific area has been proven to be beneficial if the person is very similar to you.
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