Because we are human, accepting and embracing our humanness is difficult, but this should be an important goal in our lives. This is especially true if inconsistent executive functioning skills hamper our ability to experience consistent success in life.

It can be helpful for struggling children and teens to identify good role models who have faced difficulties similar to their own struggles, and used their talents and abilities to achieve notable accomplishments.

It can be helpful to work with your struggling child or teen to regularly celebrate past accomplishments. It may be helpful to sit down with her to make a list of ways she has used her talents in the past. Make a poster of accomplishments or a “wall of fame”: Find a prominent place to display your child’s accomplishments, trophies, and awards.

With the understanding of her worth and the acceptance of her learning, social, emotional, or attention challenges, a child or teen frequently becomes less hard on herself emotionally and over time becomes tougher on herself to accomplish specific goals.

Defending against negative beliefs involves looking for false evidence that appears real and arguing the truth. Read more to learn how.

“Self-talk” is what a child or teen thinks to himself when he is faced with something difficult. A child with learning or attention problems often experiences negative self-talk about challenging tasks at school. Recognizing negative self-talk is the first step to changing it.

For their birthdays and Christmas, we all want to get the best toys and gadgets for our children and teens. In this series of articles, Dr. Davenport shares ideas for giving your child or teen one of the greatest gifts of all: self-acceptance, self-kindness, and self-direction.

Self-compassion is not self-esteem where one compares ones’ self faults with others’ strengths. It is also not self-centeredness where one feels that one is better than others. True self-compassion involves accepting one’s strengths and needs, being kind to one’s self, arguing with one’s inner critic, and developing self-direction through problem-solving and goal-achieving.

Children with learning, attention, social, or emotional problems often lose esteem because of continued failures and struggles. They negatively compare themselves to their peers who don’t struggle, and over time, they can easily become unmotivated. Poor motivation often leads to negative beliefs, harmful actions and a cycle of continued failure. The good news is that parents and teachers can help change a child’s trajectory in life by helping them develop self-kindness. Read this series of articles to learn how.