Self esteem is the complication of feelings about oneself that guides his/her behavior, influences attitude, and drives motivation. Self-esteem is a crucial factor in the developmental process of teens. Self esteem greatly influences the way of living of individual. It helps in achieving a goal. It affects the person mentality. There are many more factors that affect the people due to their self esteem. Positive self esteem helps the people to tackle the problems, to make their own choices, do that what is the best for them, no inferior or superior, make their own judgments and always live happily. On the other side people with low esteem suffer from a range of psychological difficulties such as loneliness, academic failure, and depression. It leads to the self-imposed isolation, feelings of rejection, dejection, insignificance, and detachment, and increased dissatisfaction with current social relationship. Due to this person develops the suicidal ideation and behavior. So one should boost self esteem and believe in himself and live happily.
Self Esteem -The complication of feelings about ourselves that guides our behavior, influences our attitudes, and drives our motivation.
Self-esteem is something that many people struggle with at some point during their lifetime. Two important parts of self-esteem are competence and self-worth. The ability to feel capable and have a sense of value about oneself is indicators of the level of self-esteem a person has. Self-esteem is the ability to tackle with life’s challenges, the feeling of being worthy and serving and the right to enjoy the product of hard work. Self esteem affected especially in the period of adolescence where most of the changes occur in the life, shifting expectations, changing roles, and complex relationships. Self-esteem is a crucial factor in the developmental process of teens. Self-esteem can affect many things in a student’s life from their relationship with peers and teachers to their academic success. The reading ability of students can be a direct indication of their level of self-esteem. There is a correlation between the self esteem of students and their reading ability, reading level, and academic achievement.
Factors in self esteem
Self-esteem and reading ability are shown to go hand in hand. Students with low self-esteem tend to have lower reading abilities because they do not feel confident enough to take risks in their reading. They are not confident enough in themselves or their ability to try new genres, authors, or types of reading materials.
Many people maintain their self esteem because they possess the desire to feel good about them. Some have thought that a high level of self-esteem facilitates the achievement of goals.
High self-esteem can help with coping skills and low self-esteem can lead to avoidance of problems, these both relate to how students achieve goals in their daily lives. Children learn to develop a healthy self-esteem when adults around them show them support in self esteem. They attempts to try new things.
Children who have a healthy self-esteem are satisfied in their activities without the constant need for approval. Having high aspirations is common among students that show academic achievement. Students with high self-esteem usually set higher goals for themselves and become more willing to continue in the case of failure. High self-esteem may also help students have the confidence to tackle difficult situations as well as see satisfaction from their progress and success.
There are many factors that can reduce or enhance the level of academic achievement in students. Factors that may lower academic achievement are anxiety and pessimism, while self esteem and optimism may increase academic achievement. There was a significant relationship between academic achievement and self-esteem, though it was not found whether self-esteem is the cause of academic achievement or if academic achievement is the cause of self-esteem.
Self-perception is often referred to as self-esteem or self-worth. Many children do not distinguish between their self-perceptions in different contexts. However children do view themselves at different levels of self-esteem for different areas of their lives. Some of the areas shown to have different levels of self-esteem for students include math and reading concepts, peer relationships, parent relationships, and physical appearance. Peer relationships in children and teens can be seen as the building blocks to intellectual, social, and identity issues. Teens especially start spending more time with their friends than their family members, and it is their friends that they see as an important source of support. It is from these friendships that a teen’s self perception grows and develops. While friendships can help self-esteem grow, they can also harm a student’s level of self-esteem. Feeling inadequate as a friend, by either not feeling capable of showing support or not having the same level of friendship in return, can lead to problems in classroom participation and social adjustment. Intimate peer support, such as from close friends, is just as beneficial as global peer support. Creating positive school atmospheres, where students can connect with others, will help them become successful, self-confident students.
Issues in self esteem
The desire to “ feel good about oneself” is a primary aspect of the human nature. Struggling with self-esteem usually creates adverse affects on all areas of a student’s life from social to academic. Self-esteem is most often lowered by failure, criticism, and rejection. When students have a low self-esteem, they can suffer from a range of psychological difficulties such as loneliness, academic failure, and depression. “ A healthy self-esteem must be carefully fostered in youngsters if they are to realize, and eventually assume, all the promises and challenges that life sets before them”. However extremely high self-esteem is not always healthy self-esteem. When a child becomes arrogant instead of just having good self-esteem it can become unhealthy and lead to poor outcomes because they have an inflated idea of what they can do. Children who move towards negative or dangerous behaviors and take others with them have an unusually high self-esteem.
Self-esteem is an area that affects almost all decisions young students, especially girls, make throughout their lives. One way to build self-esteem is to introduce students to books with images and stories of characters that have a positive outlook on their lives and those around them.
Teachers, administrators and other school personnel are key influences in students’ lives and the influence of these adults can be a positive force for high self-esteem in students. Having positive, encouraging interactions with adults they see every day at school can help students feel more confident. It can also remind students that the adults are interested and aware of how they are doing in school and the students may be more likely to make sure they do not disappoint the adults around them.
Shyness is characterized as a temperamental trait that is shown as a sense of wariness and self-consciousness in social situations where children feel like they are being evaluated. Being shy can be a problem for students’ self-esteem because they may not have enough confidence to see themselves in a positive light. Shyness can be associated with a range of socio-emotional difficulties including poor peer relationships and loneliness. There is some indication that shy children have greater difficulties in school compared to those students who do not appear to be shy. Some of the difficulties shy students may experience are trouble with school adjustment, forming positive relationships, and having a high sensitivity to less positive classroom climates.
In more recent research it has been found that “ shy children may be perceived as having underdeveloped academic skills because of their lack of participation in classroom activities”. These findings are a realization that shy students are not always unmotivated students who cannot function at the same level as the rest of the class. These students are shy, which may cause them to speak less and not participate as often as their peers. Teachers may see these students speak with fewer words or shorter sentences. Shyness is related to self-esteem, and it can cause shy students to feel left out so that their level of self-esteem suffers further. Only by individually evaluating shy students can it be assumed that they are struggling in their schoolwork.
Positive relationships with their teacher and a few select peers to help increase their level of participation help to improve their self esteem. Students spend such a significant amount of time in school that it is imperative that they are able to build high levels of self-esteem through relationships with their peers and teachers.
Positive self-esteem
People with a healthy level of self-esteem:
Firmly believe in certain values and principles, and always ready to defend them, feeling secure enough to modify them in light of experience.
Are able to find the best choice and act according to that, and don not care about the others whether they like their choice or not, they believe and trust their judgment.
Do not waste the time thinking or worrying about what could happen in the future, nor about what happened in the past. They live in the present.
Admit and accept different internal feelings and drives, either positive or negative, revealing those drives to others only when they choose.
Solve the problems with full trust in their capacity, not worry and hesitate after facing difficulties and failures. They ask for help from others when they need it.
No inferior or superior rather consider them equal in dignity to others.
Those, with whom they have a friendship, take for granted that they are an interesting and valuable person for them.
Resist manipulation, collaborate with others only if it seems appropriate and convenient.
Enjoy a great variety of activities.
Respect generally accepted social rules, and do not do anything prosper at others’ expense and are sensitive to feelings and needs of others.
Low self-esteem
Low self-esteem leads to the depression and suicidal ideation and behavior. A lack of social support from peers or family tends to create or stress on an individual, which can lead to an inability to adjust to current circumstances. Drug abuse and forms of delinquency are common side effects of low self-esteem.
People with low level of self esteem:
Neurotic guilt, dwelling on and exaggerating the magnitude of past mistakes.
Hypersensitivity to criticism with resentment against critics and feelings of being attacked.
Excessive will to please and unwillingness to displease any petitioner.
Heavy self-criticism and dissatisfaction.
Chronic indecision and an exaggerated fear of mistakes.
Floating hostility and general defensiveness and irritability without any proximate cause.
Pessimism and a general negative outlook.
Envy, invidiousness, or general resentment.
Perfectionism, which can lead to frustration when perfection is not achieved.
Self-imposed isolation, feelings of rejection, dejection, insignificance, and detachment, and increased dissatisfaction with current social relationship.
Conclusion
A healthy level of self-esteem comes from many things, but one of them is academic achievement, and more specifically, reading ability. Students with low self esteem deal with anxiety and pessimism related to academics. Low self-esteem may prevent students from tackling difficult situations or feel satisfaction from their progress and success. School situations are where students build much of their self-esteem. This is because so much time is spent with their peers and those relationships have an increasingly strong effect in teens. Positive school climates where students feel connected with their peers helps lead to self-confident students.
Self esteem also effect behavior of the individual that how he lives or react in the society and how he affects himself.
