The following are some childhood circumstances that can result in a person growing up with low-self-esteem (as well as a variety of other mental health issues):

Parental Neglect - Some parents, because of preoccupation with their own lives, do not give adequate attention and nurturance that their children need to grow and thrive. These children often grow up with low self-esteem, feeling insecure, lonely, and worthless.

Parental Rejection - While some parents may blatantly express to their children that they are unwanted and unloved, other parents may communicate a non-verbal attitude to their children that they are not wanted. These children frequently grow up believing that they do not even deserve the right to exist.

Substantial Loss of Significant Others - When children have frequently experienced a significant loss of important people in their lives through death, divorce or other separation, they may grow up with feelings of loneliness, insecurity and abandonment that can be powerfully re-triggered by losses of significant others in adult life.

Parental Sexual and Physical Abuse - These are extreme forms of loss and betrayal that often leave a person with low self-esteem and a wide array of feelings, including vulnerability, lack of trust, insecurity, shame, guilt, and rage.

Parental Verbal Abuse - While sometimes not as flagrant as sexual or physical abuse, ongoing verbal abuse can have equally detrimental effects.

Parental Substance Abuse - Chronic drug or alcohol abuse creates a chaotic, unpredictable, unreliable family atmosphere that results in a child often denying his or her own feelings related to the family's circumstances. Many children grow up with low self-esteem and an array of other difficulties, including personal identity confusion, depression, anger, anxiety, panic, addictions, relationship difficulties and codependency.

Overly-Critical Parents - Constant criticism or setting unreasonably high standards of behavior by parents may result in the child believing that nothing he or she does in life is ever "good enough." He or she may be highly self-critical and constantly strive for perfection to overcome feelings of low self-esteem and inferiority.

Parental Over-Protectiveness - When a child is over-protected, he or she may grow up feeling very insecure and fearful of leaving familiar people or a place. He or she may have difficulty trusting or feeling comfortable with people or the environment outside the immediate family and may risk not becoming confident, self-sufficient, independent adults.

Ongoing and Relentless Abuse by Peers During Childhood/Adolescence - Even if a child's home life is safe, happy and nurturing, ongoing and relentless verbal, emotional &/or physical abuse by peers through the years can cause a person to grow up with low self esteem, believing that they do not fit in with people their age (or with people in general) and that there is "something wrong" with them.