Children subjected to such parenting need constant reassurance and may rely heavily on peers to affirm their self-esteem, a risk factor for adjustment difficulties, including aggression and antisocial behavior (Donnellan et al., 2005). I witness how my sister's harsh and insensitive parenting led to a destructive sense of shame and extremely low self-esteem within Itzel. Our parents have tried to combat this by explicitly contradicting my sister's parenting style, but sometimes this produces a more stimulating environment for her to navigate. For this reason, I do not believe that Itzel has acquired a healthy state of emotional self-efficacy, where he feels he is in control of his emotional experiences and can express them in a healthy way. For a long time he had difficulty understanding how his emotions influence his thoughts and behaviors and, therefore, reacted impulsively to difficult situations. Through various conversations with me, my mother, and the counselor he has been seeing for a while, Itzel is slowly recognizing the consequences of his actions and is beginning to gain