Embracing Connection: Attachment Parenting Insights

Robyn Firtel

Self-Esteem and Self-Worth

Today, I’m going to be talking about a topic that’s received a lot of talk in our society and therapy: self-esteem. Now, there’s a lot of interest right now in trying to understand what self-esteem means. I know that I have many clients who are parents that think that the way to give their children self-esteem is by praising them… but that often comes from a lack of clarity of what they’re really producing in their children. Most likely, what parents want for their children is to have self-worth.


Self Worth

So, really, what we’re going to talk about is self-worth, and the difference between self-esteem and self-worth.

Self-esteem is something that you give to somebody to elevate his or her self, whereas self-worth is something that is inherently present, already in you. Any of us – or any of you who are parents – can see within your child that there’s a spirit and a soul. But even if you’re not parents, maybe if you’ve had an animal, you’ve also seen within that animal that there’s a spirit and a soul. And that’s where you find who that person really is.


Whether you believe in spirituality or not, it doesn’t matter. Even if you just believe in genetics, within that human being is a person, and that person has inherent self-worth.


Would you love your child any more or less if they accomplished something or if they did something wrong? No. Your love for your child always remains the same because you love them for who they are, not for what they do.


Same thing with an animal. For example, if you had a dog that you love, you wouldn’t think the dog was less than if the dog didn’t perform a trick for you, or if the dog went to the bathroom on the floor. You might be angry at the dog, but you would not think that the dog was worth less, because the dog has an inherent being. Children have an inherent being, as do every single human being.


Self Esteem

What happens then, when you try and give someone self-esteem through too much praise, for example, to a child, is that the child is learning that if they perform certain things to please the parent, somehow the child is good enough.

So for example, say you’re constantly praising your child for their good grades, and you think that by praising them, “Good job, good job,” you’re giving them self-esteem – which is true. The child now feels better about themselves based on what you’re saying, because of their accomplishments.


But then what happens is that when there’s too much praise, when that child becomes an adult, they’re going to constantly need that same praise from someone – their co-workers, or their husband, or their wife, or their partner, or their children – to feel like they’re good enough. Otherwise, without the praise, they’re going to feel like the only way they have self-worth or self-esteem is when they accomplish something that’s so-called “good.” But then when they do something that’s considered bad, they somehow see themselves as a bad person. So too much praise is not what promotes self-worth. It promotes self-esteem.


The Problem

The problem with self-esteem is that self-esteem can be taken away from you if you make a mistake. Self-worth is different.

With self-worth what you’re doing is you’re telling the child that who they are on the inside is what matters. “I love you for who you are, not what you do.”


For example, if they get a good grade, instead of saying, “Wow, good job, I’m so proud of you,”. Which isn’t a bad thing to say, but they’re still being rewarded for who they are from the grade. You can instead ask the question, “What did you do to get that grade? Tell me about the work that you put into it?” And then you ask the child, “What do you think about the grade that you got?” When you do that, the child is learning about who they are. Its also about what they’re accomplishing from the inside, instead of you constantly giving it to them.

What children need to learn is that they already have self-worth. If they get a good grade, or they make a great accomplishment in life, yes, they can feel good. But it doesn’t mean that they’re better than. At the same time, if they do something that they shouldn’t do, then they might feel embarrassed.


Self-esteem is something that can be given and taken away, whereas self-worth is always with you throughout your entire life. You have inherent self-worth, which is self-worth coming from the inside – just for existing.

ARE YOU ANXIOUS OR AVOIDANT IN YOUR RELATIONSHIPS?

By ROBYN FIRTEL LMFT • March 14, 2026
Understanding Anxious and Avoidant Attachment
A light purple outline of a broken heart icon.

BETRAYAL BONDS

By ROBYN FIRTEL LMFT • November 9, 2025
How the Wrong Type of Therapy Can Quietly Damage Relationships Therapy is supposed to help relationships—not harm them. But not all therapy is created equal. When someone enters the wrong type of treatment, it can deepen disconnection, reinforce unhealthy patterns, and create more conflict at home.
Two people sit side-by-side on concrete stairs; one leans forward with their head in their hands, the other looks away.

What Is Love Addiction? What Is Love Avoidance?

By Robyn Firtel • June 8, 2022
The Love Addict enters into the relationship feeling an unbearable sense of inadequacy. Her relationship with the Love Avoidant is as doomed as it is inevitable. Having been neglected and abandoned by her own parents, she has learned that all attempts at intimacy will be painfully unsuccessful. When she seeks a love mate she will, therefore, find someone familiarly not intimate, but someone who will be good at mimicking intimacy. She deludes herself into believing that the mimicry is the real thing by creating her lover in accordance to a fantasy of her own making. The Love Avoidant becomes her knight in shining armor- “armor” being the operative psychological irony- shiny, but impervious to intimate contact. The Love Avoidant, on the other hand, enters the relationship not because he is seeking confirmation of his own worth but out of a sense of duty. In his childhood, his parents taught him that it is his job to care for people who cannot care for themselves. As an adult, the Love Avoidant, while feeling superior or pity for the neediness of his Love Addicted partner, thrives on the power it gives him over her. Eventually, he grows resentful of all the work it takes to be a caretaker. He begins to feel suffocated and lifeless. The suffocating Love Avoidant begins to distance himself from the Love Addict, who after several bouts of hysterically trying to get him back, eventually becomes exhausted with the pursuit of the Love Avoidant and turns to someone else with whom to be helplessly Love Addicted or to some other addiction to cover her pain of inadequacy. The substitute addiction could be food, alcohol, sex, work, spending or exercise- any addictive activity. At this point in the Co-Addicted Tango, the Love Avoidant, who is no longer the object of the Love Addict’s desire, feels the pain of no longer being needed. Without someone whose weakness cries out for his strength, his sense of superiority wavers. What value does he have if he cannot care for the needy? This triggers deep, underlying abandonment fears- sardonically the same kind of abandonment fears that lie at the heart of the Love Addict’s emotional dysfunction. Love Addicts, never having been unconditionally loved by their neglectful and/or abandoning parents, look for a knight in shining armor to provide them with the self-esteem with which they never had mirrored for them by their own parents. Love Avoidants, on the other hand, almost never got a chance to feel their inherent worth, because in childhood they were empowered to care for their own parents. While not having received love from the parents, their caretaking gives them a sense of grandiosity, while masking the haunting truth that they have never been intimately loved. This false empowerment very effectively hides the crucial truth that they, like the Love Addict, were starved of intimacy. The contempt they feel for the neediness of the Love Addict, is the masked contempt they feel for themselves at not having been worthy of their parents’ love. Contempt is shame turned outward on anyone whose weaknesses reminds us of the intolerable shame of our inadequacy. Deprived of the caretaking role by the withdrawal of the Love Addict, the Love Avoidant finally feels the jolt of the carried shame of abandonment; and the Love Avoidant, who once feared being smothered by the Love Addict, now turns around to get close to the Love Addict again, using all of his powers of seduction to get back into control of the relationship. One is running and the other is chasing all the time. When the one who is chasing finally gets close to the one running away, they both erupt into intensity, either a romantic interlude or a terrific fight. As the lyrics to the classic song say, “You Always Hurt the One You Love.” This behavior is what most people call “normal”; and if it isn’t “normal,” it certainly is “familiar”. This cycle will repeat itself over and over again. Robyn treats both love addiction and love avoidance.