What if parental love is conditional …? Children’s self-esteem profiles and their relationship with parental conditional regard and self-kindness

**Background**

Numerous studies have demonstrated that low, unstable, or contingent self-esteem negatively affects youth development and is linked to adolescent psychopathology. However, most previous studies have applied variable-oriented approaches, and less is known about the natural combination of self-esteem facets in school-aged adolescents, how parental conditional regard affects self-esteem profiles, and how these profiles relate to self-kindness, self-judgement, and life satisfaction.

**Methods**

By employing a longitudinal person-oriented approach (i.e., latent profile analysis and latent transition analysis) on two-wave longitudinal data from 587 German secondary school students (52.3% female,M_age=13.52 years), this study aims to (1) identify adolescents’ self-esteem profiles based on the level, stability, and contingency of self-esteem; (2) examine the impact of parental conditional regard on the self-esteem profiles explained using self-determination theory; and (3) examine these profiles’ relationship with self-kindness, self-judgement, and life satisfaction.

**Results**

Four self-esteem profiles were derived:optimal-secure(~ 8%),good(~ 18%),average(~ 36%), andlow-insecure(~ 38%). The results reveal a concerningly high proportion as well as a high stability oflow-insecureself-esteem (~ 98%) and indicate the strong negative influence of parental conditional regard on the development ofoptimal-secureself-esteem. Furthermore, the results demonstrate strong correlations betweenoptimal-secureself-esteem, highly developed self-kindness, and high life satisfaction.

**Conclusions**

Using a longitudinal person-oriented approach, it was possible to identify a group with highly vulnerable self-esteem, characterised by particularly low self-kindness, strong self-judgment, and lower life satisfaction. The findings of this study support the need for prevention and intervention targeting adolescents withlow-insecureself-esteem.