Tuesday 28 February 2012

Wednesday 1 February 2012

Identifying Low Self Esteem


Owen has been having some problems getting on with one of the girls at one of our home education groups.  He tends to tease her and calls her names and swears at her.  It’s not one side as this child is aggressive too and has hurt Anya with no provocation.  However, I am concerned that Owen’s behaviour is verging on bullying.  Owen was bullied a great deal at school and he is starting to recognise that calling people names often gets him attention from the other kids.  I have identified that Owen has quite low self esteem.   I found the following very useful from The Womens & Childrens Health Centre in indentifying Owen’s low self esteem.

How To Identify Low Self Esteem

·        Feeling unhappy
·        Feeling that you are not as good as others
·        Having no confidence in yourself
·        Feeling hopeless about the future
·        Seeing bad things in the world around you
·        Feeling like a victim
·        Feeling miserable
·        Feeling tired most of the time
·        Lounging around and not doing anything
·        Putting yourself down even when you are given a compliment
·        Seeing the worst side of everything
·        Having no respect for yourself.

The site also looks at how peoples self confidence can get so low and suggest the following possible reasons:

·        Telling yourself how bad, stupid ugly you are
·        Disliking yourself
·        Hanging around by yourself or with people that tease you
·        Not keeping clean and tidy
·        Taking the blame for everything and not standing up for yourself
·        Thinking of a mistake as something that only happens to you
·        Believing that you can’t change anything
·        Thinking that no one likes you
·        Brooding about all the bad things that have happened in your life.
·        Not doing anything good or that you may enjoy
·        Listening to and believing people that say bad things about you.

I was horrified when I read this as it also accurately describes Owen.  The same article looks at what High Self Esteem looks like too.  Hardly any of the description of high self esteem matched Owen.