Portraits of children with high and low self-esteem.
Children who feel satisfied with themselves, behave differently than those with low self-esteem. Children with high self-esteem can see themselves realistically and accept for themselves that “they are just fine”. Furthermore they can realize their potential and know their restrictions.
The evaluation of their skills is based on precise feedback rather than on a misrepresentation of what they would like to believe for themselves.
Children that have high self-esteem in general have a great number of friends and it is quite easy for them to have a good relationship with other people and get on well with most of the students in their class. On the contrary, the ones with low esteem may only have one or two friends.
Children with high self esteem are often the natural – positive leaders on their class. They offer themselves voluntary, they are w
illing to help others and are willing to try new things. They do not feel threatened by changes or innovative situations, they respond positively to praise and recognition and they feel good with their achievements since they feel responsible for the results. When they face their mistakes or by having a wrong attitude they acknowledge in a realistic way what has happened and what their mistakes are.
Children with high self-esteem have targets/goals for their lives. They know what they want to do with their lives and what
they would like to achieve. They have heroes and role models which quite often guide their lives. When they face a problem, they usually find alternative ways to solve it. They also have strong views and are not afraid to express them. This characteristic does not make them popular with some teachers. They are more interested in keeping their sense of self-respect or act honorably rather than trying more to succeed.
They get involved in defensive behavior , in order to prevent others from realizing how insufficient and insecure they feel.
These defense mechanisms might be one of the following:
1. Revolution, defense, reaction, revenge
2. They do not believe, they tease or they underestimate others
3. They lie, deceive or copy others
4. They decline full responsibility of their actions
5. They intimidate (bully) or threaten other people
6. They withdraw, they are shy or they constantly daydream
7. They get involved in situations of escape like sluggishness, truancy, drugs or alcohol addiction
They tend to procrastinate, demand more attention, invent excuses and blame others when things do not go well.
They might react categorically (decisively) with boastfulness and bragging or they might act as “clowns”.
Those children may tend to withdraw or participate bashfully or rarely respond spontaneously or they need take part in anything.
They usually fall back on whatever they regard necessary so as to compensate for the feelings of deficiency that they experience.
Those students usually cannot benefit from taking advice. This is because they are more occupied with what the other people think about them than by what is explained to them.
They are afraid of failure and quite often they think it is better not to try at than take the risk and fail. So, as a result they rarely try as much as they should in order to succeed.
Even when they have proposals or when people indicate their errors they take a defensive stand which prevents them from benefiting from any advice given.
They are trapped in their own self-image which is dominated by failure and know that they are unable to fulfill the ambitions which others have set for them or even themselves. As a result, they feel undeserving, insufficient and unpopular.
In reality, those children desire more than anything else to have love, acceptance, positive feedback and respect by other people.
That is why persistent efforts should be made, so as to give them more support, multiple opportunities for success, positive feedback and in particular the sense that somebody really cares about them.
