Helping Your Child Develop a Positive Academic Self-Concept

"When encouraging children to become excited about learning, it is very important to help them develop a positive academic self-concept. A person's academic self-concept is the way they identify with what type of student they are. It is how you would describe yourself as a student. A person has many different aspects to their overall self-concept and likely identifies with each aspect differently. For example, every person will identify with their athletic, artistic, musical, social, emotional, or academic self-concept in different ways."

"When thinking about your own academic self-concept, you are likely to have a quick answer to the question about what type of student you were. Adults will often make comments like, "I was never good at math," "I was always smart in school, "I wasn't a good student, "School was easy," or "Teachers never liked me." Very often, how children see themselves as students comes from the objective markers we use to evaluate them, i.e., their grades."

Children develop an academic self-concept that reflects how they identify as students and influences long-term learning attitudes. Academic self-concept is one aspect of a broader self-concept that includes athletic, artistic, musical, social, and emotional identities. School presents multiple skill demands, offering many chances for parents to reinforce children's natural academic strengths and build pride. Grades and objective markers strongly shape children’s views of themselves as students. Rewarding effort rather than only outcomes supports motivation. Negative academic self-concepts often form early and can persist, so early parental support and targeted reinforcement are critical.

Read at Psychology Today