[kai555]

Originally Posted by shy_bear

something my 5 yr old got from her birthmom???? Little background; we have had her since she was released from the hospital at two days old. Birthmom is a person who has and still does have "trauma" in her life. She is the type of person who acts like the world is out to get her, yet does nothing to improve her situation. When you talk to her she always sounds like something horrible just happened to her. She had a bad life growing up, a very dysfunctional family, and she has VERY low self esteem.
5 year old is the type that if you tell her she looks nice she will tell you no I don't I look ugly. She always thinks everyone can do things better than her and is smarter than her. She is on the hyper active side; we don't think it is ADHD b/c she can turn it off when she wants to. She has asked some hard questions about her adoption at a young age. She has a VERY hard time making friends.
Not to say we are the great parent's; we have made our share of mistakes, but overall we are a good family and I don't understand where this behavior comes from. We are postive with her, we encourage her to do her best. We are waiting to talk to the teacher at parent/teacher conferences in the begining of Oct. and then we may move forward with starting counseling. I don't want her to go down a bad path later in life so my thought is if we can help her now that would be better.

So I guess my question still is can low self esteem be something that is inherited????

I know how she seems because I went through the same thing when I was little with friends, self esteem, etc., so knowing how I am I would definitely say to take your daughter to counseling. If this was to lead to depression you want to stop it early because it can get worse and easier to hide as she gets older. I am not saying your daughter has depression, but I was very hyper when I was little just like your daughter and I learned how to hide my depression so my aparents didn't know. I think it would be better to be prepared and just check with counseling. I wish you and your daughter the best of luck.

[kai555]

Originally Posted by shy_bear

She is involved in activities. Complains the whole time, but I tell her she wanted to sign up so she has to follow through. Right now she is in cheer and Girl scouts. Other kids don't like to play with her. She is extremely loud and talks non stop. We debated about not putting her in kindergarten this year b/c I did not feel she was ready. Her prek teacher thought she was. She is VERY smart but does not sit still long enough to follow through with anything. She still at 5 will not even sit through a meal; she is antsy all the time. Her birthfather has undiagnosed learning disablities and we are not sure with birthmom; she dropped out after the 8th grade.

Alright, I don't know about ADHD, but this is still a 5 year old and I acted exactly the same way with the complaining and being loud, but my afather always yelled at me to stop. When I was little I was constantly running around my house and about the family...my bparents both didn't go to college and now I am at a private college. I would say being over protective is better than not being protected enough. And I do believe self-esteem is inherited because I have suffered from low selfesteem since elementary school and I also did poorly in elementary school (but got better in middle and high school to become an honor roll student in both). One thing I would do is read the symptoms for depression, just to know later on if how she is acting is normal or not because many parents don't know the symptoms and think that the way the children are acting are just normal teenage ways.