Self-Esteem System
Social Development
Risk to Resiliency
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
Parents Page
Educators Page
Resource Center Info
Labelling kids as "at risk" places them at further risk. We tend to lower our expectations of kids identified as "at risk." Low expectations are a risk factor. When we expect kids to succeed, that is, when we maintain high expectations of all our kids, we provide them a protective factor. For more on risk and protective factors,
click here.
Our approach will always be strength-based. We'll consider all kids as "at promise" and never use the term "at-risk."
Material presented on this page will not make kids read, write, or do math better. It will, however, help teachers foster resiliency in their kids.
A growing body of research makes it clear: Resilient kids work well, play well, love well, and expect well.
Resiliency enhances kids' ability to be present, to learn, and to succeed. Resilency enhances kids' self-esteem.
Improve your self-esteem vocabulary. Each month we'll list a new word that has to do with self-esteem. This month's word is:
optimism
Click here to learn about this and other self-esteem words.
Check these books out:
Virginia Satir's The New Peoplemaking, Palo Alto, CA: Science & Behavior Books, Inc., 1988.
Emmy Werner & Ruth Smith's Overcoming the odds: High risk children from birth ..., New York: Cornell University Press, 1992.
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.
self-es-'teem   n   a confidence and satisfaction in onself:   SELF-RESPECT
syn   pride, healthy ego, self-regard, confidence, self-love, self-assurance, amour prope, dignity, belief in oneself, mental health
Self-esteem has to do with how we think and feel about ourselves. When we think well and feel good about ourselves, we have strong self-esteem. It has to do with thinking well and feeling good about ourselves, not necessarily feeling good.
Life circumstances may make me feel sad, but I can still feel good about myself. Self-esteem is not happiness, but if I have healthy self-regard, I increase the chances of happiness.
In this web center, we'll define self-esteem as thinking and feeling lovable, capable, and important about ourselves. (Click here for a discussion of the terms lovable, capable, and important developed for The Little Kids Page.)
Strengthening our self-esteem is no easy task. Discipline to take the time and make the effort is required. Courage to change is required. We also should understand that I am in charge of my self-esteem and you are in charge of yours. And another thing, none of us feels and thinks we're lovable, capable, and important all the time - the secret is to recognize early when we're in a bit of a slump and take action to get back where we want to be. Feeling and thinking we're lovable, capable, and important is playing in the big leagues. It is worth your time. It is worth your best effort. It is worth your courage.
Virginia 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 ... Educational goals should include helping kids develop creative coping skills (and to heal); not solve (and cure) ... For more on Virginia Satir's systemic approach to healthy self-esteem, click here.
David Hawkins' Social Development Strategy

Kids need a variety of opportunities in school to strengthen their self-esteem - to think and feel lovable, capable, and important. When they take advantage of these opportunities, they bond with school, behave well 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 connection with adults in family, school, and community who can teach and coach these skills, as well as provide encouragement and validation, is a powerful strategy. 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.

Emmy Werner on Resiliency
A growing body of research conducted over the past decade has generated a healthy shift away from deficit-based strategies based on children and youth at risk to strength-based strategies 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 classroom strategies that foster resiliency in all kids.

"Resilient children develop a positive self-image...usually based in some skill or competency...School, that is, the adult models and not the bricks, is critical...Resiliency transcends geography, cultural and ethnic concerns and is more profound with greater influence on children’s and youths' lives than any combination of specific risk factors..." For more on what Emmy Werner, Mother of Resilency, and others have determined from their studies on resiliency, click here.