Wednesday, May 7, 2008

What Cause Low Self Esteem To Children?

Common Factors that Cause Children to Develop Low Self Esteem

By Lets, published Apr 02, 2008
Published Content: 33
There are many factors which contribute to the development of self esteem for our kids. If kids have healthy relationship with his family and friends and he has supportive environment Obviously his self esteem is high. Parents and teachers who want to help kids with low self esteem should know the causes so that they would be able to find ways how to help these kids. Here are some common factors that cause low self esteem for children.

Born out of Wedlock

Most illegitimate children have unhappy childhood. They grow up with only one parent and some of them were raised by their grand parents. Others lived with their relatives and they are not treated fairly. Kids who grow up without the guidance and love of real parents have very low self esteem. They were envious to other children who grow up with love and support from their parents. Some of these kids are struggling from the ill treatment and teasing of other kids just because they are illegitimate. These factor could hinder the child to grow with self confidence. Parents, teachers and other adults could help these kids by showing kindness, love and acceptance to them.

Divorced parents

Kids of divorced parents often have low self esteem. Most kids in this situation are emotionally disturbed, confused of what to do, and have so much pain and resentment. They avoid to join or mingle other children. Lack of participation in school activities especially if parents are involved. The pain of seeing other kids with both parents supporting them is hard to handle for children of divorced parents. This is the reason why these kids have low self esteem. They need people who can accept, love and understand them for what they have been through. If we, teachers, relatives and friends could provide them these needs, it could be a great help for them to improve their self esteem.

Sibling Rivalry


This is common among homes where parents play favoritism in treating their kids. There are parents who gave special treatment to their kids who are intelligent and attractive, and showed less interest to their kids who have no qualities for them to be proud of. This will develop sibling rivalry and would let the other felt unwanted. When this happened, the child who was not given much importance will feel bad and lost interest in many things. He will be resentful and full of envy. This will contributes to his feeling of insecurity and low self esteem. Parents would see to it that, they treated their children equally no matter what they are.

Low Intelligence/ Low IQ

Children who have low IQ are usually timid and withdrawn. They are embarrass to join other kids afraid of being teased because they are slow in understanding instructions. They are frustrated when turned down by others because they can't catch up. Children who have low intelligence are often
reluctant to mingle with others. They have low self image and low self esteem.

Socio Economic Status

Children who come from families with low economic status usually have poor self esteem. They are ashamed to join with other children afraid to be cast out
because they are not in their level. I observed that many times in my class every time there is school activity where money is involved, the kids who are in low economic situations will not participate. They can not cope with the standard of those well to do who usually dominates the decision of how much they will spend,
what to wear and what to do in general. For them, it is frustrating to be poor and this feeling would contribute to their low self esteem.

Lack of support from family and friends

Children who lack support from family and friends are not encouraged to achieve things. Full support from friends and family is a good motivation for children to succeed.It would help them build confidence with themselves and inspire them to participate. If no body cares about everything they do, this could be one factor that cause children to develop low self esteem. Supportive family and friends can help a lot to improve ones self esteem.







How To Deal With Angry Children

How to Deal with Children Expressing Anger in Class

Tips for Teachers

By Lets, published May 02, 2008
To be in the classroom with students of different backgrounds and training is very challenging and stressful. The teacher's duty is not only teaching the students how to read, write and compute but also to mold their characters, attitudes and values. A teacher needs to be patient, committed and dedicated to be in this profession. In the classroom, the teacher would act as parent, facilitator, leader, nurse, police, caregiver, judge, etc. Everything that is going on in the classroom is the teacher's responsibility. This is not an easy task. Dealing with children's behavior problems is more exhausting than teaching how to read and write. But there are ways on how to deal with children acting differently in the classroom. Ways on how to deal with children expressing anger in the classroom:

Keep Calm/ hold your temper

The most common reaction of teachers when a student is angry is to scold him for displaying such behavior in class. The angry student will be more resentful if he will be scolded in public without considering the reason of why he is angry. I had a student who was so angry, he bang the door, threw his notes and kicked his chair. The more I raise my voice to stop him, the more he became wild. I became nervous also of what to do, so I decided to keep calm and called his name in a relax tone of voice to assure him that everything is fine and I want to help him with his problem. The next thing that happened was he cried. I then, realize that being calm when somebody is angry would help to ease the situation.

Talk to the child in private
You can build the trust and confidence of the child if you talk to him in private. It is best to give seat work to the rest of the class so that you can concentrate talking to the child privately. Talk to him in a relax tone of voice to make him feel comfortable. Avoid asking so many questions why he did it. Instead, let him do the talking. Let him tell you what happened with the assurance that you will listen and understand him. In this manner, you will be surprised that the child would open up everything that cause his behavior. By then you will be able to decide what is the best thing to do in order to help him improve his behavior.
You save the child from embarrassment when you talk to him in private and this would encourage him to cooperate with you.

Help find solution

When the cause of his being angry has been identified, help him find solution. If it is because of an irritant classmate, talk to the irritant child too. Most common causes of the child's being angry are frustrations, irritant classmate, family problems, or he maybe is a victim of child abuse and the only outlet of his bitterness is the classroom. If the problem is already identified, do something to help him instead of giving punishment and scolding because of the disturbance he caused. Finding the right solution to the problem would help the child a lot to overcome his behavior.

Talk to the parents

When the child has a problem in school, it is the teacher's responsibility to talk to the parents and discuss how they could work out things together to help the child. There are many instances that the parents were informed by the school administrators when the thing is already worst which is not the ideal procedure. In proper protocol, the teacher is the direct contact of the parents, so, it is his responsibility to inform the parents immediately if something is wrong with their children in school.

Give support to the child

A child who is always angry and easily gets irritated needs a supportive environment. Anger is an expression of emotion and there is always a reason why a child is angry. It might be frustrations, jealousy, rejection, conflict with classmates or maybe family issues. A child must have difficulty learning how to cope his anger if his environment is not supportive of how he feels. It is the teacher's noble task to influence his students of how to be supportive by living as an example for the students to emulate. A supportive environment could make a difference to every person specially to the heart of a child.