How Family Portraits can help boost your Child’s Self Esteem

Did you know that a family portrait can help boost your child’s self-esteem? 

It’s true! 

As we grow, our sense of who we are and what is possible for us deepens. Experts say that these perceptions and our self-esteem usually begin to form as young as five years old, and continue to evolve as we learn more about their world through experiences with friends and adults in our home environment. 

Children with good self-esteem have an understanding of their personal strengths, which allows them to overcome challenges that arise because they feel more confident and less afraid of failure.

How Can Family Pictures Boost Your Child’s Self-Esteem?

Family Portraits have been around for centuries. They once served as a way to connect long-distance families and loved ones living apart. Nowadays, they also serve as a way to document your children's growth and development! 

There are many reasons why having Family Portraits taken is important, but one of the less obvious yet powerful aspects of Family Photography (that Moms and even most photographers rarely think about) is how displaying family portraits in the home can help raise children with stronger confidence in themselves. 

Psychologists and experts have done some research in recent decades exploring the link.

A revealing study was conducted by Tulane University in 1975 with a group of fourth-grade students at a Tennessee elementary school. During the course of 5 weeks, the students were asked to take Polaroid photographs of themselves with provided cameras in a variety of assigned compositions, while expressing different emotions. The children worked with printed images and created weekly scrapbooks over the five-week period. A significant 37% increase in the student’s average self-esteem behaviors was concluded at the end of the study. This indicated to researchers that personal photography of children, seen and enjoyed in a specific way, can help boost a child’s self-esteem.

For many families, photos are a great way to capture and display important memories.  Perhaps your own home already has pictures covering your walls for all to see. According to a UK survey from 2009, 78% of people had at least one family portrait displayed in their homes. Over a decade later, and with technology and cameras on our cellphones so readily accessible nowadays, that number has probably grown to be even higher!

A Place to Fit In

Seeing family portraits every day in the home is a visual representation of where a child belongs. It can help showcase a loving bond and personal connection to their family: the people who truly understand and accept them as they are.

A child who has high self-esteem knows where they belong. A photograph is a public display of pride in your child, one that they will surely recognize. 

Memories to Cherish 

Happy photos remind us of the good times-- our most treasured moments in life. Looking at photographs of these memories can have the power to give us the motivation to carry on through the tough times. 

Take photos of your children but don’t forget to hop in the frame so your kids can see and always be reminded of how mom and dad looked, too. And be sure to take photos often, so that your kids can see how they — and you — evolved and changed over the years.

An Important Piece of History

People have long kept track of their family history and where they come from. 

Most people enjoy learning about their grandparents, great-grandparents, and beyond. For many of us, an important step of figuring out who you are as a person is learning about your history and where you and your family come from.

Photos of you and your children serve as physical documentation of your family history, one that stretches back for millenniums. These photos can even be used to compare similarities between other family members, like comparable eye color or the same nose structure. 

IN CONCLUSION

Taking family photos can offer a lot of long-term benefits to your children and their self-esteem. Not only is a picture a symbol of pride in your child, but it’s a lasting memory that can be cherished and held onto forever. 

Kids will then look at these photos for years to come and know they are loved and where they belong. 

Not only is a picture a symbol of pride in your child, but it’s a lasting memory that can be cherished and held onto forever.