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| The Self-Esteem System |
| From Risk to Resiliency |
| Social Development Model |
| What Works Ideas |
| Strengths Activity |
| Promote Optimism |
| Note: Click the links below to connect with the other pages in The Self-Esteem Resource Center. |
| Center Home Page |
| Little Kids Page |
| Big Kids Page |
| Educators Page |
| About Self-Esteem |
| Resource Center Info |
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| Visit the web sites below for useful info for you and your child. You will leave McCall Kids Dot Org and enter other websites from this page. |
| Use the back button on your browser to return to this page. |
| This award winning National Youth Anti-Drug Media site offers a solid resource to community groups, parents, educators, and other adults working to prevent youth drug use. Pages in 6 languages are packed with useful info, tools, counsel, and materials. |
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| Created by the Nat. Center for Disease Prevention & Health Promotion to answer kids' questions on health issues and ways to make their bodies and minds healthier, stronger, safer. |
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| Information about feelings & changes, food and fitness, how your body works. More. |
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| Food safety, health, & other info for kids ages 9-12 from the Food & Drug Administration. |
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| This site has the most complete drug information on the web. Click the logo to link with the kids and teens page. |
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| Parents are the single most important influence on a child's decision to use or not to use alcohol and other drugs. |
| Parents who talk frequently with their children about alcohol and other drugs have children who are half as likely to use them. |
| The number of parents who believe they are talking to their children about drugs far exceeds the number of young people who say their parents are doing so. |
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| Click for info: |
| A Look at Teens Today |
| A Guide to Internet Lingo |
| Pharming Parties |
| Check these books out: |
| Virginia Satir's The New Peoplemaking, Palo Alto, CA: Science & Behavior Books, Inc., 1988. |
| Nan Henderson & Mike Milstein's Resiliency in Schools, Making It Happen ... Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc., 1996. |
| Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer's Raising Confident Girls - 100Tips, Cambridge, MA: Fisher Books, 2001. |
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| The Daring Book for Girls by Buchanan and Peskowitz, offers girls non-tech fun and learning opportunities. It includes activitites such as 14 games of tag, pressing flowers, how to whistle with 2 fingers, double-dutch jump roping, and a short history of women inventors and scientists. |
| The Dangerous Book for Boys, a book written by Conn and Hal Iggulden for boys, is loaded with indoor and outdoor fun and you don't need hi-tech to enjoy the activities. |
| As a matter of fact the authors say, "In this age of video games and cell phones, there must still be a place for knots, tree houses and stories of incredible courage ... and making the best paper airplane in the world." |
| Both books are in bookstores now. |
| " The feeling of being valuable - 'I am a valuable person' " -- is essential to mental health and is the cornerstone of self-discipline. It is the direct product of parental love. Such a conviction must be gained in childhood; it is extremely difficult to acquire it during adulthood. Conversely, when children have learned through the love of their parents to feel valuable, it is almost impossible for the vicissitudes of adulthood to destroy their spirit. |
| This feeling of being valuable is the cornerstone of self-discipline because when one considers oneself valuable one will take care of oneself in all ways that are necessary. Self-discipline is self-caring …" |
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Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled
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| All children need to know they are lovable, capable and important... Parents who consistently express their love, offer meaningful occasions for their child to contribute to family life, and validate their child's worth as a person, assure a healthy, nurturing home and the strongest opportunity for their child to develop strong self-esteem … |
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David Hawkins, Social Development Research Group,
University of Washington |
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| "I am convinced that there are no genes to carry the feeling of worth. It is learned. And the family is where it is learned. You learned to feel high [worth] or low [worth] in the family your parents created. And your children are learning it in your family right now." |
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Virginia Satir, Peoplemaking
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| Satir's Self-Esteem System |
| Virginia Satir's insight, more than any other influence, has shaped this web center. Her self-esteem system offers a realistic approach and viable strategies to strengthen how individuals, families, and other groups think and feel about themselves. Using her model we can help ourselves and others. We can do more than talk about self-esteem - we can make healthy changes. |
| All kids - that's all kids - have what they need to change and grow; they just need to learn how ... Healthy growth nurtures healthy self-esteem and is based in focusing on children's strengths and wholeness ... Families that offer their children opportunities to develop sound communication skills and who encourage communication foster healthy self-esteem ... For more on Virginia Satir's systemic approach to healthy self-esteem, click here. |
| From Risk to Resiliency |
| A growing body of research conducted over the past decade has generated a healthy shift away from deficit-based approaches to helping kids based on children and youth at risk to strength-based approaches based on children and youth at promise. Studies clearly indicate protective factors that strengthen kids' healthy development. These protective factors serve as a strong base for families and schools to foster resiliency in all kids. For more on what Emmy Werner, Mother of Resilency, and others have determined from their studies on resiliency, click here. |
| Hawkins' Social Development Strategy |
| Kids need a variety of opportunities at home, in school and in their community to strengthen their self-esteem - to think and feel lovable, capable, and important. When they take advantage of these opportunities, they bond with family, school, and peers; behave responsibly; and are good citizens. In order to take advantage of opportunities, however, they need to develop skills and be consistently reinforced for making the effort. |
| Healthy connections with adults in family, school, and community who can teach and coach these skills, as well as provide encouragement and validation, are powerful influences on kids' lives. Good parenting and mentoring are the essence of Hawkins' Social Development Strategy. |
| "...Children and youth need to be motivated through strong attachments and relationships with individuals who hold healthy beliefs and clear standards, individuals who are invested in action that adheres to these standards..." For more on The Social Development Strategy, click here. |
| What Works Ideas |
| • Strengths Activity. This feel-good activity has been used successfully as a team-building activity during student assistance team training for Connecticut school districts. Some educators have used it with their students. We think it has potential to be a valuable family strengthening exercise. |
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Family members will: |
| • Promote Optimism in Your Family 1. Attend to the words you and your family use to express thoughts. Accent the positive. Move from a pessimistic, passive view to an optimistic, active perspective. Pessimists tend to be victims. Optimists take action. Use words and phrases such as I won't instead of I can't … I choose to instead of I have to … I will or I want instead of I should … some people instead of everyone or no one … sometimes or today instead of never or always … here, there or at work instead of everywhere … and instead of using the word they, state who they are. |
| 2. Promote optimism in the way you communicate. Level with them. Reflect honesty, sincerity, genuineness, realism, and accuracy during your interaction. |
| 3. Provide opportunities for your kids to develop competencies. Challenge them to take risks. Help them organize and allow sufficient time for tasks to get done. Model how to handle mistakes. - Validate their right to make mistakes, how important mistakes are and how to learn from mistakes, losing, and failure. Try a what's-the-worst-that-can-happen approach. Teach your children that success and failure are parts of the same learning and growing process, that they are worthy and valuable separate from their successes and failures. |
| 4. Teach life skills, including how to organize, how to problem-solve, where to go when they need help, how to ask for things and improve other communication techniques, how to take necessary risks. |
| 5. Provide guidance, not answers. Help kids develop creative coping skills, don't solve their problems for them. Coach how to go about solving problems. |
| 6. Provide choice and structure. Teach kids how to take control over things in their lives that they can take control over. Guide them to the insight of autonomy. |
| 7. Maintain high expectations for all. Promote responsibility. Hold kids accountable. Kids need to learn that they have to sit on their own blisters and shouldn't expect to be rescued when they make bad decisions and behave irresponsibly. All kids are responsible and accountable for their behavior - boys and girls alike. |
| 8. Intervene with behavior that concerns you, not character and ability. Behavior is learned and can be relearned. Guard against criticizing girls for lack of ability and boys for behavior. |
| 9. Use family gatherings to foster conflict resolution, communication and other interpersonal skills. Build a sense of community and meaningful participation. Promote altruism. |
| Designer's Note: This section on promoting optimism is adapted from notes and handouts from a workshop presented by Nancy Sharp-Light, 602 San Juan de Rio, Rio Rancho, NM at the 1996 Institute on Resiliency in Action held in Nashua, NH. |
| The Strengths Activity continued Take your time, but allow at least thirty minutes to complete. It may get a little noisy to start and kids and adults may be off task for a few minutes. It may take a little time for the family to get comfortable with the instructions. |
| Introduction In families, individual strengths are important in how they help the family to be cohesive and function well. Children and adults should be aware of the strengths each brings to the their family. |
| Examples of strengths include willingness to help other family members without being asked, sense of humor, keeping personal space and items in good order, obeying family rules, spending time with family members, good communication skills. (Note: these are only a few examples - this is not THE list. Individuals may need time to think about and come up with their own personal strengths. Take time and don't rush this step - it is key to a successful discussion.) |
| Part One: Individual Activity |
| 1. Distribute index cards and ask that everyone list the names of other family members on one side of the card and next to each, write at least one strength that each of the others brings to the family. |
| 2. Everyone then writes her/his name at the top of the other side of the card and numbers 1 - 5 underneath. Each member then lists five strengths s/he brings to the family. After allowing sufficient time to complete the list (some may struggle with this task), each checks the three strengths most helpful to the family. |
| Part Two: Team Activity |
| 1. Then, one at a time, each family member announces the three strengths s/he brings to the table. |
| 2. Other members then validate and add to their list. As family members validate or add to the speaker’s list, the only acceptable responses are • “Thank you,” or • “Thank you. I agree with you.” |
| 3. To close, ask for responses to the activity. Discuss. Usually, insights include: • That they were uncomfortable identifying and discussing those personal traits of which they are more-or-less proud (at least at the onset); • That the activity was a feel-good few minutes; • That your family has a potential wealth of resources. |