We start off in this world completely dependent on others to meet our needs. Eventually, if we grow up well-adjusted, we learn that we have the ability to take care of ourselves. I think self-worth can come from the experience of being able to cope with the challenges of life with a reasonable degree of independence and self-reliance.

That thought leads me to wonder about the predicament of a person who must always depend extensively on others due to chronic disability. Perhaps a person is born with a medical condition that makes physical independence impossible. Then, I think, the source of a sense of self-worth is not so easy to trace. Then it may reflect a faith in the intrinsic dignity of the human person. I suppose, when such a person is a child, they internalize how their parents feel about them. A child who's treated with respect, I believe, comes to respect himself.

Unfortunately, some parents treat a child as a burden or as a possession. Those attitudes undermine a child developing a sense of self-worth.

Eventally, everyone stops being a child and decides some things for themself. I think the best case scenario is that a person realizes that he belongs to himself, is not an apendage of mother or father, takes responsibility to make his own decisions and comes to like the way that turns out, despite having to learn from mistakes.