When parents provide love, care and respect, children have a solid foundation for self-love and acceptance. If one or both parents are excessively critical, demanding or overprotective, discouraging moves toward personal independence, children may come to believe that they are incapable, inadequate or inferior. One of the strongest circles of low self-esteem in a child starts with constant criticism (which reflects the parents' own frustration, anger and low esteem), leading to negative feedback, inevitably leading to the child's low opinion of him/herself.

Finally, there is acceptance of that negativity which children carry throughout their life, without even realising that they are a walking advertisement for poor self-image. If parents simply encourage their children's moves toward self-reliance, and accept and love their offspring as they are, especially when they make mistakes, children will gradually learn to accept themselves, their potential and limitations the first crucial step in developing confidence. Children from African Caribbean homes, particularly Black males, and girls from Asian households (both environments which are gender biased, high on negative discipline and low on displays of affection and positive feedback) are especially prone to the twin evils of low confidence and self-esteem.

Inconsistent Boundaries for Children
Among African Caribbeans, a high proportion of them being single parents, the confidence of children is often being undermined, primarily through a lack of consistent boundaries (being spoilt') from an early age. For example, perhaps through not being able to afford adequate child minders, being over-protective, or through sheer ignorance, parents insist on, inappropriately, taking their young children (especially those under seven years old) to parties and late night events, regardless of the inconvenience to their hosts or the effect on their young ones. More importantly, this action provides no boundaries or consistency for the children who are often allowed up to all hours of the night. Come the day the child cannot accompany the parent out, for whatever reason, or cannot stay up as late as the norm, he/she becomes fretful, anxious and unsettled. Positive discipline is then undermined and childrearing becomes more problematic.

Young children need to have firm but adaptable rules which both protect and improve their inexperience. If they have no boundaries at all in an inconsistent regime, being allowed

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