It's been said that the three things children need for good mental health are significance, security and self-esteem, also known as the Three Ss.

When my wife Mary and I wrote our latest book, Growing Great Girls, we realised that although it's a different experience to parent girls versus boys, we didn't yet know enough about the difference to warrant a whole book, so we had to do some more research.

We discovered a trend that started 20 years ago, which was to challenge self-esteem as one of the Three Ss. Many people who worked with children found that self-esteem can just be self-inflated ego with no proof of ability. Often, under crisis, this false self-esteem can be deflated like a balloon and leave the child, or adult, with nothing to reinforce their value as a person.

It was also discovered that an emphasis on self-esteem impacted on teenagers too. If they became depressed they would conclude, ‘I'm not good at anything,' which further emphasised their problems.

In light of these findings, many experts now believe that the self-esteem should be replaced by the word ‘progress'. Teaching a child to accomplish activities gives them not only goals, but skills and a sense of ‘I'm good at this', which develops their self-worth.

One of my radio hosts shared with me about how he chatted to his daughter at bedtime. He asked how she would rate her day out of 10, and she said ‘Three' because she had struggled with maths that day at school.

He discussed the issue with her and from what she shared was able to say, ‘I think you accomplished a lot - you learnt how to do that, and used it to solve a mathematical problem.'

Before he tucked her in, he asked how she would rate her day now, and this time she said, ‘Eight.' What he had done was let his daughter see her day through his mature eyes, and showed her that she had in fact made some good progress with her maths.

It's interesting how many older people who have been active all their life retire, then die shortly after. Could it be that they have taken ‘progress' out of their life?

It's often easier for a parent to tie their child's shoelaces for them, but it's more important to teach kids how to tie their shoelaces themselves, allowing them to make progress.

Some children with ‘Type-A' personalities will find ‘progress' a little frustrating and will back away because they don't like doing things they can't do well straight away, so it's important for parents to say, ‘When you're learning, it's OK to make mistakes.'

Encouraging everyone to give a meal-time review around the dinner table once a fortnight of a book they've read is a fun way to come together as a family. But next time, why not also take the opportunity to ask each child what progress they see they're making in their life?

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