Our children are our future, and nurturing their self-image and self-esteem is essential for their wellbeing, not just as children but as adults in their later life. Our ability to respond to life effectively depends on the beliefs and feelings we have about ourselves. These are first set up in childhood through our self-image and self-esteem.

In order to provide a nurturing environment for our children, we as parents or potential parents can begin by looking at our own inner child, and healing it where it is wounded. This can be done by using visualisation to journey back in our life to meet ourselves as a child and to provide it with any love and nurturing it did not get, particularly at any traumatic times in its life. Traumas can be released more effectively by combining this nurturing with the infusion of a more mature and complete perspective of the situation - something which was not available to the child at the time, whose brain was not yet fully formed. This process, called 'reframing', will involve forgiving parents, authority figures, and aggressors, rather than blaming them, otherwise we simply recreate ourselves as victims or martyrs and sabotage our healing.

Remember that if these people cause a child harm - something which is of course inexcusable - it is because these people lack awareness and feeling, and are themselves suffering; it is not because the child deserves to be hurt or deprived of love, because this is never the case, whatever the child does. Before forgiveness becomes possible, though, it may be necessary to feel enthusiastically any grief, anger, fear, apathy, or pain that has been suppressed. Once these feelings are fully felt they will dissipate, enabling the forgiveness to occur.

Sometimes it may be the case that a child was traumatised because it misinterpreted a situation. For example, if a parent left its sight and was absent for a sufficiently long time, it is possible that it may interprete the situation as one of abandonment when this was not the case at all. This will be because at the time the child lacked information and the capacity to adequately rationalise the situation. When this kind of trauma has occurred, whether it involves the perception of abandonment or anything else hurtful, fill in the missing information with your child, and reason things through to help you and your child make sense of the situation.

To help the child to recover its self-worth, check to see where in its body the child has shame stored relating to a shaming event and help the child to expel and dispose of the shame and the negative belief that goes with it. Shame is often instilled in a child by parents and authority figures who, intentionally or unintentionally, demoralise it and leave it feeling worthless, abnormal, dysfunctional, or bad. The negative belief that went with the shame can easily be disproved by showing the child examples of how it is not worthless, abnormal, dysfuntional, or bad. If a child was rarely praised or made to feel worthy, it is likely that these examples will have been overlooked. Once the child is free of the shame and the associated negative belief, ask it what it would like in place of that shame and belief, and use these things and your love to fill the vacuum left by the shame.

The following are some examples of child-nurturing used by parents, guardians, and those working therapeutically with their inner child.

1. Letting your child feel welcome, starting from the moment of conception if possible. As a mother, looking after yourself during pregnancy, and, when preparing for birth, trusting in your strength and resourcefulness as a mother. It is much better if you can avoid handing your power away to the medical system at this time. When a mother loses trust in herself and hands her power over to the medical system, the child can be left feeling insecure and confused, not knowing what to trust in anymore.

2. Making your child feel welcome and of value means making time to be with it and actively showing it that you love, trust, value, and respect it. Showing love not just when your child does something good.

3. Encouraging your child to express itself and its feelings, thoughts, and needs. Listening to these and acknowledging their validity as a product of the child's experience, rather than dismissing them.

4. Supporting, encouraging and complimenting your child's efforts. Celebrating its successes. Showing your interest and pointing out how its actions make a difference.

5. Trying to avoid criticising and correcting your child. Directing any corrective comments at your child's behaviour, not at your child, and being thoughtful about the words you use. Avoiding shaming or putting labels on your child.

6. If your child is misbehaving, explaining why its behaviour is not acceptable to you and encouraging it to learn from the situation and grow. Hitting a child not only hurts it, but instils fear, breaks trust, and gives it the message that it is okay to hit someone smaller and weaker.

7. Building trust by only making promises to your child that you can keep.

8. Allowing your child to make choices and take on challenges appropriate for its ability and development. This lets your child know it is trustworthy and enables it to develop responsibility, autonomy, and independence. Providing a supportive structure with clear limits, and teaching your child to measure and appreciate its progress - without trying to be perfect - shows your child how to feel secure and in control in life situations.

9. Encouraging your child to develop friendships and social skills, and to balance assertiveness with receptivity and cooperation. A child with positive self-esteem will naturally form healthy relationships.

10. Allowing your child to figure out their own values and beliefs, based on what they have learnt about themselves and their experience. Allowing your child to discover and live its own truth is crucial to its development. When any individual conforms to values and beliefs that are not their own, they dishonour themselves and their experience by destroying their integrity, sense of purpose, and natural enthusiasm, and by giving up their self-determination by ceasing to think wholly for themselves.

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