self esteem help

[selfesteem]

Does anyone know of any programmes designed to help self esteem in primary aged children. Someone had mentioned an About Me book. Does anyone know it?

How has anyone improved their childs self esteem?

Sorry no.answers - just lurking/bumping..

Does anyones child need help with self esteem at school or home?

Have done some stuff with me own ds. It really depends on the issue. Is it your child or are you a teacher?

From what I've read spending one to one time with them is very helpful. Child led time as much as possible.

I've had (and continue to) problems with my child's self esteem (he is about to go into Y3). Many reasons. It is improving now due to better friendships and moving classes. Loads and loads of encouragement at home and we sometimes lie in bed listing the things he is good at. Also someone gave me some great advice on here about praising myself as they copy this and praise themselves. So did start with things like, "Mmmmmm...that's a great dinner I cooked, clever Mum!"

Not heard of the book but interested. What is source of child's self esteem problems?

I am a parent not a teacher. Any teachers on here used any programmes for this??

I presume it is due to DSs medical problems but it is hard to know, it could be genetic too. He compares himself to the most able girl in the year rather than everyone else despite no academic pressure from us. School are helping with one to one with some success. We do lots of one to one and document everything positive every day without fail. He has very high IQ with some Asperger type traits but is not ASD (although he doesnt know any of this) if that answers your query 123.

It definitely is affected by the teacher. This year he had a great class teacher and it really helped. He had a different teacher for maths and despite being very able at maths DS wrote on his own school report comments that he was not good at maths.

123 - what have you done to help?

How old is he?

age 8

mine will be 8 in Nov. He is a bit like this, but more generally. He feels the fact he is near the bottom of the class and he feels failure easily (he dropped the baton on Sports' Day which the next kid gave him a very hard time over even though I think it was his fault it was dropped and although their class won Sports' Day overall, ds1 could not enjoy the victory because he was still reliving the baton pass until he went to bed that night).

What did the 'good' teacher do, do you think, to help him relax? Lots of praise.

If he is a perfectionist, I would avoid phrases like 'do your best' as 'best' can be limitless. I would also just try and get him interested in other things so that he sees there can be achievement in areas like art, music, writing, sports, digging up dinosaurs or whatever may pique his interest.

I think constantly re-iterating that you can't be the best at everything, that everyone has different talents, that everyone learns at different paces. It sometimes just takes a lot of repeating, but it is going in somewhere and it will come out the other side.

Not sure exactly what the good teacher did but he loved her and she always sounded to me like she thought he was wonderful and he seems to have got that impression from her too.

Thanks for the advice. We have tried so hard with other activities especially outside of school but there is little that he would see as an achievement and even less that his peers would recognize as such.

Hmmm yes the peers thing is tough. They only seem to admire football! You need to work on WHY he doesn't see non 'academic' things as an achievement. And my personal favourite, "It's more important to be kind than clever."!! Also that learning how to work hard for something is better than it just coming easy to you because most of life is hard work including relationships. Maybe there are some books about this. Lots of TV programmes and films have good morals, like Arthur (CBBC), so whenever you see something just point it out. There's a good series of books You can never, ever live life comparing because someone else will always be better at something. Sadly, some people are still doing this into their middle age, and they are mostly miserable.

here's a book but I haven't read it

I do think it goes in, honestly, the constant pointing out, if you get it clear in your head what you want him to believe about himself. We battled with my dd for 4 years with tantrums and finally this year they have stopped. We didn't do anything differently but I think she finally 'got it', that she wouldn't get her way and it was as unpleasant for her as everyone else.

Sorry was writing that there's a good series of books by Joy Berry, but there wasn't one on self esteem.

Hi,

I bought a big mirror (180X110 cm) for my son to help increase his self-esteem, 6-7 month ago. Since then I bought more mirrors, because they do their jobs. He spends time in front of the mirror just looking himself, dancing, pretending that he speaks with one of his classmate, playing situations. Sometimes I play situations with him in front of the mirror so he can see how people react for different situation. E.g: we play we are friend with each other and get angry to each other, or one of us very good at something and start to say to the other person that he is bad because he cannot do that things, etc? Sometimes we just dance in front of the mirror, so he can see that I am not perfect as well. He can play alone in front of the mirror as well, because there is ?his friend? in the mirror.

We achieved a lot with mirrors. In the beginning of the year he was alone in the class, not participate and now he is very popular in the school not just only in his class. In the beginning of the year he was upset that X Y can do something and he cannot and now he was smiling when he finished each race last in the sports day and he did not give up in the middle of the race even when he already knew he will be the last one. He discovered how he looks like and what he is good at it and he is accepting these things. He started or he already loves himself (he kisses himself in the mirror) and I think that is the first point for self-esteem, they need to love themselves.
No need to say the mirrors are always full of his fingerprint and his mouth print.

Have uou asked the school about their SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) programme? Dd's school have nurture groups that help build children's self esteem. At home giving responsibility and independence seems to help a lot too.