The Importance of Self-Esteem in Child Development A Review of the Literature and Personal Reflections Self-esteem is a sense of one’s own worth, value, confidence or self-respect. The development of self esteem tends to drop during adolescence. A child’s ethnic identity can play a key role in their ideas of what’s valuable. Parents and peers are capable to helping a child build a high self-esteem. The experiences in a child’s life are a major source of how self-esteem is developed. This literature review considers whether a healthy self-esteem is a primary key factor that leads children to living a successful life by responding to the following questions: 1. Does happiness and success of a child depend on a healthy self-esteem? 2. What differences can be seen in children with high or low self-esteems? 3. How can we improve a child’s self-esteem? Does Happiness and Success of a Child Depend on a Healthy Self-Esteem? Carl Rodgers theorized the origin of many people’s problems to be that they despite themselves and consider themselves as worthless and incapable of being loved (Wikipedia, 2016). In fact, children with low self-esteems are more likely to diminish the consequences of risky behavior, and rationalize verdicts. They are known to being shy and introverted and don’t participate in many activities …show more content…
Meaning the parent congratulates their child for their achievement(s) but shouldn’t be fulsome in their gratitude. Also, a positive self-esteem can be developed by a child repeatedly experiencing success. Their success will not only make them feel good but as well as their parents, friends, and other people that care about them which augments their fulfillment and makes them feel even better about themselves and encourages them to take on new tasks to yet again feel the gratification and satisfaction of their accomplishments (Cunningham,
According to psychologists Milton Rosenbaum and Richard de Charms, those with a low self-esteem tend to be more easily frustrated and therefore more susceptible to aggression. Hans Toch was a famous author of a study based on prison inmates and their violent behavior. In conclusion to his study, he proposed that their behavior was often “self-image compensating.” More studies have been shown to include other forms of violent behavior such as rape, murder, gang violence, and child abuse.
Every parent desires to have a child who will be successful in life. In “Brainology” author, Carol Dweck explains that there are consequences for praising children for their work. Dweck also explains that there are different types of mindsets that enable an individual’s development. She claims that there are two types of mindsets that people have. In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work ( Dweck 1). Furthermore growth mindset individuals love learning and are resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. (Dweck 1). One more theory, Dweck mentioned was fixed mindset. The author states “In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence
In the article, Caution–Praise Can Be Dangerous, Dweck’s objective was to explain that praising students has a huge impact on performance and their way of thinking. Dweck studied fifth grade students and the effects of different messages said to them after a task. There were three responses: praise for intelligence, praise for effort, and praised for performance (with no explanation on why the students were successful). She described that having an understanding of how praising works could lead teachers to set their students on the right path. In Carol’s opinion the Self Esteem Movement did not produce beneficial results, but rather limited students’ achievement.
Self-esteem is a powerful force within each one of us. It is a person’s overall assessment
The child may feel the need to perform and excel in every area of their life in order to get recognition. Not only does the child then appreciate recognition when a goal or accomplishment is achieved, but sometimes they feel the need to control the outcome of their accomplishment by continuously seeking new ways to earn recognition. Continuous extrinsic motivations such as these may result in the child feeling that by enhancing their performance and getting recognition from their actions and accomplishments they can control what people think of them. In simplest terms, the danger of becoming a people pleaser is put into play. While an authoritative parent monitors and would most likely intervene to change this developing belief system, unfortunately, a non-authoritative parent may not be the first to take this initiative in their child’s life. This parenting style typically leads to behaviors in the child where they may perform well in school to please their teachers, however they may also feel anxious, withdrawn, and have a general unhappiness. They most likely will have trouble dealing with the frustrations in life, will generally follow traditional roles of social expectations, and will enter into adulthood with a general lack of the warmth, unconditional love and nurturance that children require as they
Self-concept is an individual’s compilation of feelings, self-perception, and an idea of the basis of human personality. Self-esteem, usually identified in a positive approach, is the concept of one’s confidence in abilities and self worth, and the idea of self-respect. Self-evaluative standards evidently have a vital role in shaping future emotions and subsequent behaviors (Kuiper & McHale, 2009; 143.4: 359-76). According to Abraham Maslow’s Theory of Self-Actualization, self-esteem, notably confidence in oneself, respect for and by others, is achieved after physiological needs, safety needs, and love and belonging needs. Self-esteem, then, is combination of several characteristics, which result in a physiological
Parents these days seem to over praise their children, seeing that it is their job to building self-esteem. Thus, either influencing a positive or negative impact onto the child. And whatever effect it causes, it defines a child’s self-esteem when he/she is growing up and later
A demographic trait varies throughout the world and in various literatures no study has demonstrated much statistical associations between identified variables. Studies of self-esteem are then hindered by methodical problems and shows that self-esteem changes throughout childhood. Issues arise after having difficulty in assessing the time of these changes affecting self-esteem in children and adolescents that have been cross-sectional rather than longitudinal (Crago et al, 2009). In 1 of the few longitudinal studies that has been conducted, Brown et al found that self-esteem begins to decline by the age of 11 in white girls but remains relatively stable in black girls between the ages of 9 to 14, and lowered during middle adolescence ages 13-16 (Crago et al., 2009). The study also concluded that self-esteem does change over time, and the distinction as to whether or not the factors that affect self-esteem also change from elementary to middle
Hello, this is Alanna Argudo, and I will be discussing Chapter 1 The Inverse Power of Praise from Nurtureshock written by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. The Inverse Power of Praise explains that new research suggests that actually telling your child they're special will ruin their chances at succeeding at subjects they struggle with because they refuse to even try if they believe they will fail.
In the discussion, I have learned different cultures and diverse techniques to work in early childhood environment. I also learned it is okay to express our feeling while I shared the struggles as well as sad story from my life. In the self-esteem research paper, I had a chance to discuss about my self-esteem while living in a new country. When I wrote this paper, I have learned that I have both positive and low self-esteem. Honestly, I have never paid attentions about my self-esteem. After writing this assignment, I was surprised that I could recognize my positive and low self-esteem. Personally, I think it is important to go back and exam on self-esteem because it will help me to understand more about myself. I have learning that having low self-esteem will not only effect to my everyday lives, but it may also lead to a mental health problem, such as depression or anxiety. Therefore, I need to maintain my positive self-esteem. Then, I will find techniques to boost my low self-esteem to positive
When parents have a healthy self-esteem and feel good about themselves, they are more likely to give over to their children a positive sense of self. They can engage in activities and boost their child’s confidence while providing their children with the full attention they need. However, when a parent has negative views of themselves these feeling are very likely to extend to their children. A parent’s low self-esteem ca...
What causes teenagers to have such low self esteem? There are two main problems: how other people treat them, and how they view themselves. Parents or authority figures that spend more time finding fault in children rather than praising them often result in a child who has trouble building up self esteem As adolescents are ...
Before learning about early childhood in this class I never realized all the way children at such a young age are developing. From the second part of this course I learned how much children are developing at the early childhood stage. I never realized children learn how about their emotions, having empathy, and self-concept at such a young age. I thought children had it easy. They play with friends, start school, and just be kids. One important thing that stood out to me in this chapter is that children’s self-esteem starts at this stage. According to Berk (2012), “self-esteem is the judgments we make about our own worth and the feelings associated with those judgments (p. 366)”. Self-esteem is very important for a child to have and it can
The Self-Concept is a complicated process of gaining self-awareness. It consists of mental images an individual has of oneself: physical appearance, health, accomplishments, skills, social talents, roles, intellectual traits, and emotional states and more –all make up our self-concept.
Psychologists and self help practitioners both agree that self-esteem is a relevant component in a persons behaviour and should be taken into account when assessing their well being. Within Psychology its precise relation to the well being of an individual has shifted along with trends within psychology itself regarding the subject. Social cognition is an example of a psychological theory that incorporates self esteem within its definition. It involves the persons interpretation of themselves as individuals and in their interactions with others along with there social environment. The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) is a self-report scale developed by Rosenberg a psychologist who supported the social cognition theory. This self-report is a reflective test to assess a persons level of self-esteem (graded high or low) and is still applied in some cases when assessing a persons well being.