Self Esteem

[SoliDeoGloria]

I wasn't sure where to put this one, but it has to do with linguistic philosophy so I decided to put it here. I'ts kind of funny how it starts out, so here goes nothing.

I have a couple of kids in grade school. A big issue pushed in the schools for a while has been self esteem and how every kid is special. I've never really agreed with the idea because I think it is over done and doesn't allow much room for accountability. Teachers really frown if you tell your children that they did something wrong because the emphasis should always be on the possitive rather then the negative and ofcourse kids are a lot smarter then we give them credit for and will play on that knowing that it will envoke different responses in different places. I'm sure we were all kids once and can relate.

Anyways, A few of weeks ago there was a news report on this issue ( I can't remember if it was NBC or CBS). What they were stating in the report is that this whole self esteem thing is pushing kids out of high school and college with false expectations and is turning out to have a negative effect from what they expected. The reason being is that children are leaving school with such "high self esteem" that they feel no need to impress anybody and get shocked when in the rea job world, you need to impress people, mostly employers, to get anywhere. The conclusion was that educators were starting to rethink how they deal with the "self esteem" issue.

Then we as a family watched "The Incredibles" and I noticed something very interesting in the movie. The funny thing is there is an amazing linguistic philosophical message to the movie if you really pay attention. Once, in the movie, the mother tells her son while they are at the dinner table that everyone is special to which the boy responds while turning his head: "which is another way of saying that nobody is". Then the whole plan of the bad guy in the movie is to put on a sherade so that everyone can buy his special weapons and become "special" supers heroes which in turn would put everybody on the same level as far as "specialness" goes so that in truth nobody would be considered "special" anymore. So I thought to myself, how funny that a Disney childrens cartoon movie has come up with an amazing rebuttle for this whole "self esteem" thing that has been pushed on our children for quite some time. The linguistic philosophical lesson is that if everyone is "special" then it defeats the actual definition of the word "special" and in turn becomes a self-contradicting statement.

For anyone who must know, I have absolutely no problems affriming my unconditional love for my children and make it a point to prepare them for a world filled with action=consequences. When they do good, I give rewards and when they do wrong, they get grounded (usually from the playstation or fun activities, etc.). I have no problem letting them know that I am upset with wrong things they do and make it a point to emphasize that it is what they do, not who they are that I am upset with. I find that it bumps heads with the over emphasis on possitive affirmation that they are taught in school for the sake of "self esteem" though which frustrates me.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
SoliDeoGloria

 

[No*s]

Huh. I may have to watch it now .

I love the way that was put. I never caught onto it that way. If everybody is really special, then it negates the unique value in the person, and if we base our dignity on our specialness, then we will destroy it in the end. Thanks for this one .

I've never been a big fan of self-esteem. It's always struck me as egoism. At no point am I radically different than everyone else: there will always be someone bigger, better, faster, smarter, etc. I feel that I should follow the advice of St. Paul and think lowly of myself.

Obviously from my posts on the forum I am far, far from successful

 

[groovydancer88]

I think self esteem is a healthy thing, as long as it is realistic. People who have too little self esteem and don't recognize their own value can't get past this negative thought process of 'I can't do this' or 'I'm too ugly, people hate me'. It's a very counterproductive way of doing things. And then of course like no's said, too much self esteem means an inflated ego. Never good. I think there's a happy medium that we should stive for.

 

[Hope]

I think what's getting messed up here is what exactly defines one's self-esteem, or what one's self-esteem is based upon. Coming from someone who has struggled with self-esteem most of her life, this is an issue close to my heart, and one I'd like so many who also struggle to come to terms with. Proper self-esteem never comes from being told one is special, or being pampered---that's called 'being spoiled'---rather it simply comes from unconditional acceptance and love, that recognizes one's inherent worth, despite faults and failures. Too often people place their sense of worth on outward things, like performance, and that is shaky, shaky ground to place one's self-esteem on. And though these teachers think they are doing the right thing by constantly affirming their students, what they are doing is actually no better than if they were constantly putting down their students. Each type of behavior gives the students a skewed view of their worth. The only way for a child to have healthy self-esteem, in my humble opinion---neither over-inflated, nor de-flated---is for that child to understand that their value and worth is entirely and completely independent of what they look like, how smart they are, how well they perform, etc., etc.

I call it being 'grounded.' 'Knowing oneself.' Knowing one's worth apart from all outward appearances and achievements. Once one has this solid foundation, then discipline and constructive criticism will not be seen as a threat, and praise will be accepted graciously and humbly. It is recognizing, and seeing oneself, in a realistic way---seeing oneself as a flawed human being, capable of many, many mistakes; and, yet, at the same time, capable of improvement, even greatness; and no matter what, always remaining a valuable, loveable, beautiful human being.

 

[Bastet]

I started to answer this earlier, but had to go away and think about how to word it a bit better. In the meantime, Hope has expressed so eloquently what I was going to, that all I can say is:

^^ What she said.

Good self-esteem/self-worth/self-image should all come from within, not from without.

 

[Melody]

Soli,

I agree with you. Back when I was teaching (15 years ago) that was *the* philosophy in education. While I agree with it in theory, I disagreed in their implementation. I was on the carpet several times because the principal felt I was being too hard on the kids.

Instead of patting a child on the head for substandard work and oohing and aahing at how well they did, I would sit down with them and go over how they could improve it and give them the opportunity of redoing it for a better grade. Most took the opportunity and then were worthy of the praise.

Ego is built by praising the child for everything, regardless of the quality. Self-esteem is built by giving them opportunities to excel.

 

[Feathers in Hair]

While I understand where you're coming from, I wasn't brought up with the 'praise everyone' attitude, and that really wound up effecting me. (I should say that it effected me in two ways: at school, I was usually the one being praised (we didn't have a G&T program), so I was also usually the kid that others took out their frustrations on. At home, my grandparents were of the sort where you didn't praise a child unless they had 'won' at something. It was rather awkward, at either extreme.)

I think that focusing on the potential of the child to do better (instead of focusing on the negative of how they failed) is important. Not that that means ignoring when a child has done wrong, though.

 

[Snowbear]

Self esteem *should* come from within, but as has been pointed out in this thread, what people think of themselves is largely based on feedback from others.

A child's self esteem can be destroyed by continually telling them how stupid, ugly, fat, unworthy or inadequate they are.

There must be a balance somewhere between building self esteem without falsely inflating the ego.

 

[Prima]

Ah, then here we have a contradiction.

People LOVE throwing out the word 'self-esteem' If you're basing your view of yourself on what other people think of you, it's not real self-esteem. In reality, it's not 'self-esteem' - it's 'others-esteem'! I think most people would benefit from actually understanding what self-esteem is, instead of throwing the word out there. True self-esteem comes from inside oneself, and I don't think it can ever make ones ego inflated.