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I am not sure it it is a self esteem issue as much as an EQ one. Emotional Quotient (sp?) is the part that helps people thru the rough times. One can have a genius IQ but if you don't have determination, patience, persistence and a positive attitude you will likely have a hard time in life. I do believe that those qualities are inherited just like intellegence. I also believe that those are things that can be mitigated. My oldest ds is just like your dd, negative about every thing or at least he used to be.
Over an entire childhood we pushed pulled and dragged him to activities that gave him the chance to find a passion and the expereince of seeing how sticking to something builds success. Also each activity came with a built in set of friends. I find it is easier for kids who are a little shy to make friends in situations where there are fewer kids and they are involved in something for short periods. In Scouts they did a project or learned something in a meeting which only lasted an hour. In dive team it was the same thing only they got to go to competitions together and that really helped bond the group (especially since there were only a handful of them). Lastly all of my kids have HAD to do community service. That is something that makes them feel good about themselves AND helps others. It can be as simple as going to the warehouse in your town when "One Voice" stuffs backpacks for homeless children, or serving a meal on Thanksgiving or setting up a giving tree at you church. Making sandwiches for a Habitat for Humanity crew with other kids. Those are not things that take any particular skill or ability but when you see how much even a little kid can accomplish it is really awesome.
Nathan did not become the social easy going kid he is now over night, it was years and years of little successes and frankly alot of the time I had to drag his negative butt to all of those things and it was very tiring. BUt eventually I started to notice that he was waking me up on Sat. ams to go to dive practice and HE was putting on his Scout uniform on Wed. evenings without being told, HE was terlling me what the date for the One Voice thing was and for the past three years he has stood up in our church to make all of the announcements for youth group community service stuff because he is now so passionate about it. That is so different from the little boy who always said "I can't do it" "I am terrible at this" etc. He is now the head prefect of his school, captain of the lacrosse team and while he is still not the brilliant scholar that we think he could be he has learned that we all have short comings and sometimes success is less about inate ability and more about just doing the work.
lisa
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