Helping promote Self-esteem in Young Children
4th August, 2010 - Posted by - 4 Comments
Risk = Reward
As a child growing up in the 50’s and 60’s I recall being given a tremendous amount of freedom. As a 6th grader in 1964 my elementary school took us on a field trip to the New York World’s Fair. We got off the bus and they said go have fun and be back on the bus at 2:30. No teachers or parents supervising us we went all over and had a ball. Thoughts of doing that today seem impossible. And yet at 2:30 on that day every one of us made it back to the bus. We were given responsibility and we all managed to have fun and be accountable.
Today we live in a world where instead of giving children responsibility we deny them the opportunity to do for themselves. Parents wake their kids up, tell them what to wear, remind them of things to do, and sadly deny them the independence that they will need to grow up to be successful adults.
While we worry about obesity the real epidemic impacting children and young adults is low self-esteem and poor mental health. Kids live in a world where they define their character by what they are wearing, the toys they have or the things they accumulate. While all children are born with good self-esteem they eventually lose it as they begin to define themselves by what their peers think of them. Pressure to get perfect grades, be the greatest athlete or look beautiful or handsome become the norms by which they define themselves.
The consequences of this are that children are denied a childhood. The good kid acts like an adult. Children are denied the opportunity to have fun and instead become obsessed with the things promoted in the media and the goal of trying to out do their peers. Parents contribute to the pressure by letting their egos live through their children. As educators and parents there are many things we can do to help children enjoy their childhood and subsequently grow into healthy adults. So here are a few ideas:
- Let kids have fun – don’t put pressure or unrealistic expectations upon them
- Give them responsibility
- Let kids manage their own disagreements
- Teach children how to handle conflict
- Teach them about the media and how they manipulate their thinking
- Educate parents to back off with pressure
- Help young people develop good communication skills
- Teach stress management skills
- Intervene when we see kids not handling things effectively
- Be a good role model
- Trust that kids can handle responsibility
- Don’t be afraid to let them fail – it builds character
- Recognize when kids do good things and praise them
- Make each and every child feel valued and loved
- Help them to make their own decisions instead of solving problems for them
Today more young adults are abusing drugs, taking medications, struggling with depression, or feel inadequate. We have a moral responsibility to help each and every child to enjoy their childhood and to transition into adulthood with the skills and attitude to function as healthy adults. I thank my lucky stars that I grew up in a day and age where we were given freedom and trusted to live our lives independently. While we made mistakes and had struggles we learned from them and we grew up with the confidence to move forward in life.
It will not be easy to turn this around but it all starts with awareness and a desire to make it better. Play creates a huge opportunity to develop many of these ideas. Take some of these tips and think about how you can act on them during the play activities you do with the children you work with. Let them make up games, deal with conflicts and have responsibility for the activities. Only when we trust children will they turn around and trust us. When that happens we have healthy relationships and together we can move forward to make our world a better place where our children feel good about who they are, respect others, enjoy life and desire to do good things.
Dr. Malcolm Goldsmith is the Executive Director of the American Association for Health Education (@AAHE_HealthEd). Dr. Goldsmith retired from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville after 32 years where he served as Professor and Coordinator of Health Education. He is married, and has one daughter. For fun, he enjoys hiking and playing racquetball.
photo credit: Christina Spicuzza
Tags: children, ECE, family, fun, head start, Health, movement, Physical Activity, Play, preschool, self-esteem
Posted on: August 4, 2010
4 Comments
Tweets that mention Helping promote Self-esteem in Young Children | The BODY SMART Blog -- Topsy.com
August 4th, 2010 at 11:34 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jennifer Beck, HeadStartBodyStart. HeadStartBodyStart said: New blog post: Helping promote Self-esteem in Young Children http://j.mp/bB2aLB #ECE #paren #play [...]
Kellie
August 4th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Thanks Mal for the blog post! Indeed play is critical to the development of children. I remember as a child being allowed to ride my bike on our dead end street unsupervised up and down the hill!
jenny
August 4th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
Thanks for the great post – I’m thinking a lot about risk and outdoor play at the moment in the context of preschool settings.
a beautiful beginning | I Think in Pink
August 29th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
[...] my current event I found a blog promoting self esteem in children. To see for yourself, follow: http://bodysmartblog.org/2010/08/04/helping-promote-self-esteem-in-young-children/. I thought this particular article was excellent and I agree with it on every level. Children [...]
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