Your inner critic may tell you otherwise because it would not want you harm. After all, it is there to make everything safe. The thing though is that we don't always have to be safe with everything. Life is a great, great weave of risks, only we have to accept it as it is. The inner critic has the noble intention of keeping you protected. Unlike the detrimental habit of saying- "my life is messed up" or "my life is nothing but a good way to kill time", you can use positive reinforcements and say otherwise. You may not have realized it but you are a genius in your own fashion. A philosopher once said that all men have an innate beast within him. Unless you want a child to suffer a life of miseries, you must be conscious of how you handle him, the things you are making him believe and the acts that you intend him to see. All these are essential in instilling a confident spirit in a child. So you see, you as a parent or a model to which the child has learned to associate his respect and trust to is responsible of your actions towards the child. These zones may not necessarily help him grow and recover from too low self esteem yet these will cerate environments where he is safe from critical eyes. Another sign of genuine low self esteem is the emotional turmoil that often causes anxiety over things that for other people, requires no serious attention at all. However, if your standards deal more on the innate beauty a person may have like goodness of attitude or skills and talents, you may start revamping yourself by strengthening these areas. Low self confidence is more aggravated by our failures. Failing is inevitable and so it must be dealt with a light heart. Depending on your treatment of things, the end might as well be considered as the beginning. The start of a new trial. All we need is to take the positive attitude and make ourselves believe that some things are meant to fail on our first trials and then luck would follow us. Our route for development is always towards a specific goal.