Self-esteem is based on two things: Your ability to take care of yourself in totality and your ability to contribute to a group that you're a part of. When you're talking about young children, the first jobs, the first tasks, the first skills that you teach them are self skills. How to take care of themselves. Pick out their own clothes, get dressed, make a bed, brush their teeth, take a shower, wash their hair, make toast, pack a backpack, make lunch. Those are all valuable skills that kids are hungry to learn. And it also feeds their self-esteem. By the time they're 3 and 4, they're looking for opportunities to help their parents in real life situations. They don't want plastic kitchens. They want to be in the kitchen. They want to unload dishwashers and set tables. They want to help sort laundry and put the soap in. They want to help run the vacuum and get the dust buster. And for some reason, parents think that good parents delegate their children to the sidelines while they do all the work and the kids play alone. But what we know is where children want to be and what their natural drive is is to help out around the house. All a parent has to do is make a list, extend an invitation, do a little bit of training, and they will have a child who believes that contributing to the health of their family includes helping out around the house.