Meaning of self-esteem

WHAT IS..
Some time ago, I sent a SMS out to ask some of my friends about what they thought having an adequately good self-esteem is... Their replies were as follows:

- To be able to compare to others and still take it in their stride
- To be positive 98% of the time if possible everyday would be a good start of having good self-esteem
- One can have a high but fragile self-esteem or low but stable self-esteem.
- People derive their level of self-worth by virtue, support of family, god's love, academic competence, physical attractiveness and gaining approval from others.
- Being able to accept criticisms and not having to prove one's greatness.
- Irrelevant...Cos' it depends how much can you sacrifice when it comes to keeping your ego
- Well..sufficient to function in society at a level desired by the person.
- When you don't give a damn about self-esteem. That's a good level right there..Hahaha!
- Erm...adequate self-esteem would be maybe 33 percent?

All right answers...no wrong answers... Self-esteem is truly something that makes you feel comfortable wherever you are. This thing you build up ever since you are born. So what is this thing we are supposed to have been building up that constitutes self-esteem. I think we are constantly building up our opinion of ourselves. So a high self esteem is a good opinion of yourself and a low self esteem is a bad opinion of yourself.

How it forms…
According to the developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst, Erik Erikson, we all have tasks that we had or have to perform in our lives. When we were infants, our tasks were to learn how we can trust people around us. Soon after, we strove to perform activities independently and with each successful activity we performed independently, we gained a sense of pride and mastery.

Perhaps what would follow is, if we were not allowed to make little choices of our own or do certain things by ourselves, we might not have gained a deep-seated sense of self-achievement and self-confidence by the time we reached school-going age.

Truly, if parents did not allow their children to explore and learn without understanding that it is ‘ok’ to fail and try again, their children might end up feeling a great sense of guilt each time they fail and in many instances, they grow to perceive that they can only feel good about them if they succeed almost immediately. Parents are only setting their child up to fail in life because the reality is we do fail at times. In fact, some successful people failed many times before they succeeded.

When I become a parent…
I think that if and when I become a parent, I will give my child the permission to fail a hundred times and teach my child that it is ‘ok’ to fail but not ‘ok’ to stop trying. I will teach my child that he or she is no less a person just because he or she failed. I think permission to do and acceptance is one of the things that many are not given when they are young and even when they are older. I feel it is failure on the part of the parent to not give the child permission to do because it severely robs the child of experiencing life in its fullness. Of course, it then becomes even more challenging for parents because then amongst all their other duties, they will have to manage the desperate situations their children might land themselves in, but is it not true that parenting is and always will be challenging no matter what you subtract from it?

Let the lives of these people speak…
(I chose some of these from: http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/efficacynotgiveup.html)

- Thomas Edison's teachers said he was "too stupid to learn anything." He was fired from his first two jobs for being "non-productive." As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?" Edison replied, "I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps."
- Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he succeeded.
- Michael Jordan and Bob Cousy were each cut from their high school basketball teams. Jordan once observed, "I've failed over and over again in my life. That is why I succeed."
- Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas." He went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. In fact, the proposed park was rejected by the city of Anaheim on the grounds that it would only attract riffraff.

AND THIS IS MY FAVOURITE ONE:
- Winston Churchill failed sixth grade. He was subsequently defeated in every election for public office until he became Prime Minister at the age of 62. He later wrote, "Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never, Never, Never, Never give up." (his capitals, mind you)

Can we still cultivate our self-esteem?
Yes of course we can…

I think we all should:
- Recoginse and accept ourselves for who we are – this is an uphill task because so many people are ready to give people negative feedback. I have learned that there are only so many things that we can control and then some things that we cannot control or change, we should just quit trying to control. I also remind myself PERPETUALLY that some tongues will always wag but most of these tongues don’t will you well so just don’t give a damn…it’s too much time wasted thinking about it and they’re probably not that important to waste your energy on them.
- Set practical goals for yourself and work hard at them. Be it in the area of your work, family life or even time you set aside to just relax and hand loose, you can set goals and when you manage to attain those goals, you tend to feel a sense of accomplishment.
- Respect and practise latitude for individual action within the defined limits of the environment. Use your creativity, ingenuity, and imagination in your work or even in your other areas of life for it is said that restrictions that suppress individuality can lead to a narrow focus, with people becoming stunted in the use of their personal skills, abilities, and resources.
- Allow yourself to bond with other individuals freely and as you like it and find relationships that enable you to grow and be yourself.

Good luck!! :)

Ode to Tears

Hush Tears, hush,

Why you wanna cry,

It ain't worth the trouble, not worth the cry.

So hurry up & dry for there'll always be trouble nigh.

You ought to soldier on,

March, with stoic grace,

For there'll always be trouble nigh,

It ain't worth the trouble, not worth the cry.

Waste of time, my dear Tears,

A waste of time 'tis,

So take a deep breath...

There won't be tears no more.

That's right. until it pains again,

Goodbye, Tears,

Goodbye I say to you.

Lose the Rod and Spare the Child

I was having a very interesting discussion with my supervisor about the use of punitive discipline measures on younger children. I was brought up by two very sweet and caring (and if I may add, rational) parents who used the cane on me when I was rude or offensive or when I stole a bunch of pencils while I was in Kindergarten. They moderated the caning with clear explanations of why they hit me. I am very proud of the way they brought me up so I told Ms. P, my supervisor, that I would cane my children when they were young.

I am not sure if I've changed my mind but the discussion that progressed has definitely lent me new insights into parenting and disciplining children.

My rationale for caning (e.g. the back of the leg) at least up till Primary 2 is because I feel the first 8 years are the formative years. It is my worry that children, especially little children, do not fully understand the severity of their actions, that is, they are not disciplined for bad behaviour, they will not know bad behaviour even if it stared them on the face. I also shared that I felt that little children might not understand completely even if you try to rationalize with them as they are still developing their reasoning skills. They might then be more susceptible to bad influences from outside. Ms. P first shared that it is incorrect to believe that really young children cannot understand. There are ways to make them do so. There are different, non-punitive ways of disciplining children like Effecting a Time Out System or cutting off the number of hours from Play Time. These will enable them to understand that their behaviour should not be repeated if they want to return to what they were doing before. Besides, non-punitive discipline measures, she said, if effected consistently and at the appropriate times will have positive effects.

Message behind caning?

Oftentimes, in our profession, we tell the individuals we meet for counselling who hit their children until they are black and blue that their act of caning was wrong because "it hurt or injured their child". So would it have been right if it did not have any visible scars? What about the non-visible wounds - like the fear instilled or the feeling of insecurity? Could we perhaps be telling them that wrong behaviours should be followed by punitive disciplining?

Haim G. Ginott (1922–1973), a clinical psychologist, child therapist, educator, and author of several books on the relationships between children and parents writes:

"Misbehavior and punishment are not opposites that cancel each other; on the contrary, they breed and reinforce each other."
- Haim Ginott

Perhaps they do. For social workers, a lot of their work is theory-driven. We believe that we, as adults, teach our children how to react when they are faced in the similar situation. In short, we model for them and they learn from us. Therefore, when we hit, we give them the message that the only way to "treat" worng behaviours is to punish or "discipline" the other person. It is no wonder some children go to school and when they are bullied or picked on or even when they feel wronged, they immediately lash out at the other person, either to chastise or to injure or hurt the other.

There is a very fine line between punitive discipline and punishment therefore we probably should decide not to use this form of discipline.

Child abuse in Singapore

A Straits Times article dated 10 May 2008 that the reported number of abused and neglected children brought to the courts for Care and Protection Orders (CPO) has been rising steadily over the past decade. The number stood at 114 last year, compared to just 18 in 1996. In one-third of the 114 cases last year, the abusers were the children's mothers, with fathers accounting for about one-fifth of the cases. One in four was abused by both parents.

It is often a myth that fathers are the main abusers of the children. Very often, we find mothers abusing their children because of the greater amount of time they spend with them.

The article also said that the problem of child abuse cuts across all income-groups, thereby breaking the myth that abuse only occurs in low-income families. There are cases where the child's parents hold master's degrees or are well-respected in their fields. We find that oftentimes when children do not meet their expectations, parents 'react in extreme ways' by confining the kids, using physical violence or inflicting emotional abuse.

Do you have the "right to hit your child"?

Sadly, for some, but most truly, we do not have the right to hit anybody. Children are protected under the Children and Young Persons Act.

We have to stop the culture of revenge and violence that have pervaded our lives. If we teach our children not to hit others then can we try to practice that ourselves.

I leave you with a very interesting and funny quote or poem I chanced upon...

When a child hits a child,
we call it aggression.
When a child hits an adult,
we call it hostility.
When an adult hits an adult,
we call it assault.
When an adult hits a child,
we call it discipline."
- Haim Ginott

Introduction

That's me (to the right) and my darling sister...

I'm trying out this whole blog thing and it is quite new to me. I am not going to tell you to bear with me, etc. just like how other diaries begin... For one, I don't intend for anybody to read (but if you do, please enjoy) and secondly, I am doing this for ME not you (haha!).

See...I am a social worker. I am now working in the field of family violence and interpersonal violence. For now, this blog will help me by allowing me to track how clients/individuals feel overtime when they externalise their feelings or thoughts and help me track my progress in the field of family and interpersonal violence. Perhaps I will find out more as I go along...who knows? Wish me luck...