I see a lot of inspirational sayings on my Facebook feed. Some of them inspire me, some of them make me roll my eyes, some make me angry and my favorites include cute baby animals.

But a recent post by a young mother had me wanting to dole out parenting advice. Since I don’t have a psychology degree of any kind, my advice is highly unreliable. But here it goes. The quote that caught my eye was about filling your child’s bucket of self-esteem so high that nothing in the world can drain it. It sounds great, but it is total bull.

Now, I like the bucket-filling concept — I’ve written about it. People who give are bucket fillers and people who take are lowdown, dirty bucket dippers. But you can’t give self-esteem. You can’t buy it at the store, wrap it in a box and put it under the Christmas tree. You can’t say — BAM! you have self-esteem…continue reading.