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How to develop self-esteem in young children

Do young children have self-esteem?

By Ma Jia La ShiPublished about a year ago 6 min read
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How to develop self-esteem in young children
Photo by Christian Bowen on Unsplash

Do young children have self-esteem? Can self-esteem play a role in the physical and psychological development of young children? How much does it play a role? How should self-esteem be cultivated in young children? If these basic questions are not properly addressed and children are not taught self-esteem, it will directly affect the healthy development of children throughout their lives.

Self-esteem means respecting oneself, not groveling to others, and not allowing others to discriminate or insult. Of course, this is not something that can be fully achieved overnight; it requires a long-term or even lifelong effort. Recent studies have shown that self-esteem is the key to a person's success and that it can design a plan for each person that leads to success and provides a 100% success rate. This shows that it is very important and necessary to develop self-esteem in early childhood. Therefore, we began to try to find the best solution for developing self-esteem in practice to expect each child to get a good start for future development.

Create a safe, harmonious, warm, and loving educational atmosphere.

Toddlers

When organizing activities, teachers must ensure the physical safety of the children.

By using the "invite in, go out" method, we invite traffic police, firefighters, doctors, electricians, and other related people into the kindergarten; we bring the children into the social classroom to experience the serious consequences of not paying attention to safety. With the help of modern means such as pictures, videos, and computer animations, we help children understand the general knowledge and precautions of using water, fire, electricity, gas, knives, and common medicines in a multi-channel and all-round way; we inform them of the significance of observing traffic rules; we teach them the general knowledge of coping with accidents and mastering 3~5 different types of emergency measures to ensure that they gain a comprehensive understanding of perception and rationality.

Teachers must conduct a comprehensive inspection and maintenance of all kinds of large activity equipment and operating materials provided, to prevent accidents from happening to the greatest extent possible.

Only when children's physiological safety is truly ensured can they actively adapt to their environment and accept the impact it brings.

Teachers should be tolerant and calm to care for each child.

Appropriate and moderate educational behaviors of teachers can create a pleasant learning and living situation between teachers and children, and children and children. Every teacher should not take an overly eager attitude toward weak children, reprimand or punish children with bad behavior too much, or take a violent and suppressive attitude toward children with strong personalities, while overly affirming and pampering the so-called "good babies". If children are under pressure for a long time, how can they understand themselves correctly and learn to respect themselves?

It has been proven that without physical safety and emotional security, the best activities cannot happen, and there is no way to talk about developing self-esteem in young children.

Create opportunities for young children to succeed purposefully and intentionally.

Every young child should have the opportunity to succeed at something, and to succeed often. The teacher's role is to look for and identify things in which children can succeed often and to create opportunities for them to succeed constantly. One child in the older class, Ping Ping, was a tall, poorly self-controlled, reactive "character" who was a headache for the teacher, and who was ineffective at criticism, reprimand, or coaxing. After observing him for a few days, I found that he had a particular strength in sports and art drawing. For this reason, I organized a series of sports competitions: ball-slapping, grass-climbing, cave-drilling, rope-jumping, and sandbag-throwing ....... In each activity, he happily enjoyed his success, the teacher's encouragement, and the appreciation of his peers. In addition, we started a personal painting exhibition for him in the class, which also achieved good results. Gradually, Pingping gained "self-esteem" from the success and encouragement and gradually changed from being the "problem king" to the "little role model" of the whole class and the "little helper" of the teacher. The teacher's "little helper". Imagine, if we still keep circling Ping Ping's shortcomings and keep him in a pessimistic and depressed state of mind, he will not experience the joy of success at all, and there is no way to talk about developing self-esteem.

Through various means and using a variety of techniques, we ensure that each child's self-image matures gradually.

Children expect to receive encouragement and appreciation from others for any activity they perform, and this positive evaluation will stimulate their success in many ways. For example, in the cooperative play activity of leading small children with large ones, the older children organize and lead small children with their existing experience and abilities, playing roles that they are willing to take on. Although they are not perfect from the adult's point of view, timely guidance, appropriate encouragement, and positive evaluation will make them gain confidence and transfer this successful confidence to all aspects of children's life and learning. However, the reality is not promising. In a survey conducted in the United States, children received only one positive evaluation for every six negative evaluations they received. For Chinese parents who "want their children to become dragons" and teachers who want their students to score high on exams, invariably give their children more criticism, reprimands, punishments, and distant goals for them that are difficult to achieve shortly. Imagine how education like this can enable young children to form a good self-image and experience the joy of success.

At the same time, teachers should pay attention to developing optimistic thinking patterns in young children. Thomas Edison once said, "I haven't failed, I've just discovered 10,000 ways that don't work." It was because he had such an optimistic way of thinking that made him the greatest inventor with 1,093 patents. It has been proven that some people cannot get rid of the shame and despair of not succeeding in life, which is directly related to their inability to break free from the shadow of failure psychologically and to face the causes of failure. If young children can understand the truth that "failure is the mother of success", they will have an insatiable spirit of adventure and exploration.

Of course, developing resilience in young children is of great relevance to the development of their self-esteem. Not only must they be able to withstand failure, but more importantly, they must have patience, resilience, and the ability to be creative and original to gain a good self-image.

Integrating self-esteem, life skills learning, and curriculum in various kindergarten and community activities

As social beings, young children are not independent individuals. Families, kindergartens, and society all provide a rich environment with many demands. And young children are their own best educators; once they are allowed and encouraged, then they will use and explore the whole world through all their senses, gaining the psychological and material security that will promote their future holistic and harmonious development.

In short, only when teachers have a new concept of education, a scientific approach to education, and an advanced sense of education, can they raise young children to be self-respecting people who will adapt to the future society.

advicechildrenhumanityparents
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About the Creator

Ma Jia La Shi

Is there any other reason to live in order to change the world?

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