Not a lot of teachers think of teaching self esteem, although there are motivational speeches available that you can read, or play a video of or assign for older students to read on their own. Some schools will have assemblies at which they discuss self esteem, but other schools leave it up to the teachers. Whether it is on your curriculum as part of a class unit, or if it is a homeroom lesson project try to teach the children about self esteem as well as you can.
Especially as they get older, children, pre-teens and teenagers are very susceptible to low self-esteem. In teaching self esteem, be sure to emphasize confidence and belief in oneself. Starting at very young ages, children can be very hurtful to one another. There are the bullies, there are the popular children who learn quite early how to look down their noses at the others, and there are (more than likely more than a few in your class) the children who are teased or threatened, beaten up or just ignored.
With any hope, the children who suffer most have good families they can rely on, but in teaching self esteem you cannot count on that. These kids are going to be the most difficult to teach self esteem to because they have probably already developed poor self esteem.
In teaching self esteem, your lessons must be designed especially to assist just this kind of child. Hopefully, the child will be able to find external validation elsewhere—but if not, we hope that teaching him or her about self esteem will help the child respect and care for him or herself—instead of needing to have external validation. There are few truly effective ways to teach self esteem. If you can instill within your students certain ways for a student to really have confidence in him or herself—you may very well be able to change his or her life for the better by teaching self esteem. Do not think of teaching self esteem as a burden, but rather, as an opportunity to make a real difference in a childs life.
Help them learn that you do not have to be popular, outgoing, tough, or good looking to be a wonderful, worthwhile person. If they can learn this—they will be able to avoid many terrible self esteem issues that would otherwise come up sooner or later in their lives.
In teaching self esteem, some teachers use self esteem worksheets—these may be a great tool to teach children to respect themselves and remain confident. Self esteem worksheets provide the class with examples of different ways that someone can perceive him or herself. They can see by illustrations on the worksheets that ones perception of oneself can change their constant emotional state. The children will answer questions about how they feel about themselves and why. If certain students feelings about themselves are negative, you can show them why they should not feel that way.
Sometimes, self esteem worksheets help students to evaluate where their self esteem lies. Then in teaching self esteem, they will be able to better understand what to so to make themselves feel better and have a happier life.
