Print this form.    How do you feel about yourself?
                                   © Phil Builder 2003

Choose (circle) one word from either side that best describes your feelings about yourself as Sportsperson, Parent, Writer, Speaker, etc.   
Then give yourself a score out of 10 to reflect the strength of your feelings.  For instance a  strongly negative score would be 0-3, while a strongly positive score would be 8-10.
Add up your scores and see the end section to find out more.
 

What conclusions can you draw from this about your self esteem?
Are you more confident or cautious, negative or positive? 
Do you think it is because of your experience, education, or your native personality?  Experts would agree that all three contribute in varying degrees to make you what you are today. 

We are born with certain characteristics which shape the way we interact with the world and therefore how the world responds to us.  Our early environment at home and later at school is crucial to shaping our personalities further.  If our early social and learning experiences are positive we are more likely to be self assured and confident, and have a high level of self esteem.

Helping your children develop confidence

You can help your children to be confident, to think well of themselves, and to have the power to attempt to learn new and difficult things.

You need to

1. teach them to be prepared to 'have a go', to take risks with new learning
    
2. let them know that you love, accept and support them as a person, whether they succeed or fail
    

3. support and encourage them to keep trying when they find the going tough
    

4. recognise and reward the effort they put in - rather than just reward them for their best achievements. 

It's not simple! Consider these cases

• Most parents reward their children when they do well.  However, if you reward one of your children for getting 10/10 for Spelling what do you do when she (or her brother) only gets 6/10?  What if her brother doesn't have the ability to get 10/10?  How will he handle that in the long term?  What does it do to his attitude and self esteem?  What if he does have the ability but refuses to compete because he knows that he can't beat his sister every time?  Its much better to not set them up to compete.  Reward them for learning their spelling, recognise how much effort goes into it, sympathise with them if they are not so successful, and make it plain that improvement is achievable with effort.
   
• If a class teacher gives gold stars for ability to children who are able to get 100% in Maths, Spelling, or knowing their times tables, the same children always get the stars first.  Is this fair to the children with less ability or less home support?  Soon a 'pecking order' develops within the class and every child knows their position.  The successful children become more confident while the less successful become more cautious about learning in this environment. 
  
  It is the teacher's responsibility to treat children equally and to teach them how to learn, rewarding them for being involved in the learning process which includes things like co-operating, sharing, participating, 'having a go', taking risks, trying new things, careful bookwork, setting out their work, finding and correcting mistakes, completing assignments, completing homework, using initiative, and so on.

The best rewards are those which every child can achieve, are non-competitive, and which promote good attitudes and habits.  Reward your children for remembering to do their homework (without you reminding them),  for spending their time learning Spelling or Maths, for taking care with their work, for completing assignments on time, for improving their performance, for using their initiative, and for helping and caring for others.