Your Child's Self Esteem

5 Pages 1169 Words

Children are said to be the future. They are going to be our future prsidents, teachers, lawyers and doctors. Children must develop not only physically but mentally, cognitively, socially and emotionally. According to Dr. Paul Chance’s article, ” Your Child’s Self-esteem”, a child needs a high self-esteem to be successful in the future. Self-esteem is a smaller part of what ism called self-concept. Self concept is defined as the sense of self that includes self image which is one’s view of self and self esteem. Self-esteem is what a person views as his or her self worth. In this article there are several different psychologists that have done studies ranging in ages from birth to about the age of 6 over various periods of time.
Dr. Chance mentions a study done of two girls, Alice and Zelda. Alice is age five and a kindergarden student. According to her teacher, Alice is making excellent progress and in her opinion one of the brightest in her class. Alice is very confident and quick to participate in classroom activities. Although considered independent, when she feels failure is imminent, Alice is quick to ask for help to prevent it from happening. However Zelda, age six, is the complete opposite of Alice. Zelda is in the first grade and her teacher considers her to be one of the children making the least progress in the class. Zelda seldom participates in class and when called upon, she’s quick to respond with an “ I don’t know.” She doesn’t partake in group activities and often is noted to be on the sidelines, watching instead of interacting. Zelda is more dependant and waits for people to offer to help her rather than do it herself. Dr. Chance states in the article that the differences between the two girls are emotional and motivational development. Alice is more self confident and considered by many an optimist. To her success and happiness are achieved people who strive to get to that point. Zelda, however ...