DR. THOMAS LICKONA
Understanding their moral development stage can help you improve your child as you see their priorities and their mindset. The next step after understanding is to set expectations, the proper ones. You can do so by using yourself as the example. Since children are mirrors to their parent, as said earlier on the second chapter under the section of the Effect of the Environment, it is your responsibility to become a good mirror for them. Becoming a good mirror means that you are demonstrating what is it like to become a good person. If you expect your child to be a happy child, you must be happy and have good self esteem first. A saying goes that ‘action speaks louder than words’, and this is exactly the power of the parent’s influence: their actions.
Because being a good mirror starts within, these are the tips from Dr. Josephine Kim on how to become a good role model.
1. Be Positive
Being positive, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, means being constructive, optimistic, or confident. Positivity can be expressed by your body language and the way you speak. One of the ways of expressing positivity is by using compliments. Praising your child makes them feel happy and valued, it increases their self esteem as it assures them that what they are doing is good, creating a positive atmosphere in the house. Most Asian parents tend to focus on the negatives instead of the positives and forget to appreciate the improvements that their child has made.
However, to make a proper compliment is not that simple. You need to give specific compliments so that the child understands their progress exactly. For example, your child has successfully tidied up his or her desk without being reminded to do so. This might seem like a small thing but it is improvement right so it must be appreciated. You can do so by saying this “Wow! You are getting more responsible. Your desk is so tidy and I didn’t even have to ask you to tidy up. Good job!” In that compliment you show exactly where the child has improved and how good they have become by doing so.
Showing affection is also a sign for positivity as you spread the love. I know it is difficult for parents sometimes to express their love in such a direct way as most Asian parents tend to show their love through their actions. The hard work you do for your children is your way of saying “I love you” and you expect your children to see it implicitly. However due to media development communication is getting more direct. When children watch TV and they see a father figure, there is a common western stereotype that they hug and kiss their children, say “I love you” and such. This creates an expectation for behavior to parents as when your child sees that and then you behave the other way they would most likely think “ What did I do that I am so unlovable?”. It is a sad thought and it could be avoided by expressing your love explicitly to your children so that they really know that you really love them.
2. Forgive Yourself
Don’t feel so guilty about the things that we should be doing rather than what we are doing. For example, as a working Mom/ Dad there must be times when you wished that you could have spent more time with your child but think of it like this. Your child is going to see an independent and empowered person that is able to take care of themselves and is useful to society on a lot of levels. In a way that is beneficial for your child because that way they are able to say
“ Whoa if my parents can do it, then I certainly can do it.” It instills pride in your child when they see what you are doing. Seeing their parents loving their jobs and being good at them is a good example to portray.
I would like to place an emphasis on how children model their self esteem to their parents. However do not overcompensate or be excessive when complimenting your child because too much of a good thing cand be a bad thing. Over praising can result to narcissism and an over inflated sense of who you are. It might seem okay at home because everyone is happy with your child but later as your child goes outside, a place where people don’t praise them that much, they may attempt to do things that prove their worth so that people would recognise them. This is one of the causes of bullying as when children seek to be recognised they do so by lowering others. Being an overly lenient parent, which means that you don’t ever get angry or set expectations, will result to overindulgence. This means that you are not setting limits and boundaries and you are giving up your authority as a parent.
Successful learning cannot be done without the most fundamental support system which is the home.
THE TEACHER
Sir Ken Robinson said that the role of teachers is to facilitate learning. That’s it. It is not as easy as it sounds though as sometimes, according to him, teachers get engaged in the activity of teaching but are not really achieving it. For example Mrs. Rita is teaching in room 6 but if students there are dozing off and feeling miserable, nobody is actually learning. Hence she may be engaged in the task of teaching but not actually fulfilling it. How do you make children learn? Well, let me tell you a story about Rita F. Pierson, a professional educator since 1972 who has taught elementary school, junior high and special education. She was a counselor, a testing coordinator and an assistant principal. Her passion was helping financially lacking children in America. One of her colleagues once came up to her and said.
“They don't pay me to like the kids. They pay me to teach a lesson. The kids should learn it. I should teach it, they should learn it, Case closed.”
And she said to her,
“You know, kids don't learn from people they don't like.” Sometimes in teaching we miss the most fundamental thing which is the value and importance of human connection. relationships. Building a good relationship with your students is the key point for helping them. It is very important for educators to pay attention to their interactions with their students. Teachers must portray appropriate attitudes and treat their students equally. It is hard as sometimes you will not like all of your students. But the trick is, they can never know. Rita Pierson said “educators become great actors and actresses, and we come to work when we don't feel like it, and we're listening to policy that doesn't make sense, and we teach anyway. We teach anyway, because that's what we do.” Teachers need to make the student feel like they are somebody and are appreciated so that a good relationship can be established. Every child deserves a champion, an adult who will never give up on them because when someone really takes the time to teach with all their heart, the student will feel it and they will successfully learn.
An example of a good relationship between students and teacher is can be seen from an experience from Dr. Josephine Kim during her first years living in the United States. As an immigrant from Korea, she did not speak a bit of english and had troubles at her school. Nobody wanted to be friends with a strange Asian kid. All this changed during fourth grade when her English teacher, named Mrs. Janet, acknowledge her. She wasn’t invisible to her and was not just an Asian kid. Mrs. Janet really saw her as a person, just like any other student in her class and that she had the right to learn. Every recess Mrs. Janet and young Dr. Josephine Kim would spend a one on one session where she would send the kids out and even coordinated with the other teachers to supervise her next class for a while when she was tutoring her. After 6 months, she transformed from the weird Asian kid into an outgoing child.
Mrs. Janet built a positive relationship through sincerity and acknowledging the student. A trick that Rita Pierson used to one of her toughest classes, with the toughest students, was to raise their self esteem by making them feel proud of themselves first. She told her class to say the following words out loud “I am somebody. I was somebody when I came. I'll be a better somebody when I leave. I am powerful, and I am strong. I deserve the education that I get here. I have things to do, people to impress, and places to go.”
And they said,
“Yeah!”
You say it long enough, it starts to be a part of you.
Make your students feel appreciated and valued, use constructive criticism and acknowledge their improvements. The reason for demotivation is repeated failure, how to make a failure feel less like a failure, Rita Pierson did this by highlighting the positive thing out of the failure.
She gave out a 20 question quiz and a student managed to answer two correct out of twenty. Instead of putting a -18 mark she put a +2 and a smiley face. The student said to her “Ms. Pierson, is this an F?”
She said “Yes”
“Then why did you put a smiley face there?”
She said,
“Because you're on a roll. You got two right. You didn't miss them all.”
She added a positive expectation where she said
“And when we review this, won't you do better?”
He said,
“Yes, ma'am, I can do better.”
You see, -18 sucks all the life out of you. +2 said, “I ain't all bad.”
Because you believe in them, students will automatically believe in themselves as a result. This power of self esteem will result to confidence and self respect. With these two, students can go a long way and achieve things they couldn’t have possibly imagined.
THE STUDENT
As a teenager we must not rely on the foster and care from our parents 100% as we are no longer infants. We cannot control the environment that is brought to us since birth, where we live, who our parents are, what our skin color is, and so on. What we can control are our choices. We have a choice, in a bad environment or a good one to be the best we can be. Simply because we are born into an unsupportive environment doesn’t mean that we will grow up to be like the people there.
Our power is the choices that we make. Whether to get carried away by the tide or have your own current. To establish your own current, you must first have enough power, this power comes from within. The confidence of your own voice is what you need for you to make the right choices. So how do you grow that confidence inside you? Here are a few tips quoted from Dr. D'Arcy Lyness, a behavioral Health Editor on Kids Health, Child and Adolescent Psychologist that I feel is very beneficial for all teens out there, struggling to build your self esteem.
1. Manage your inner critic. Notice the critical things you say to yourself. Would you talk to a best friend like that? A harsh inner voice just tears us down. If you're in the habit of thinking self-critically, re-train yourself by rewording these negative unkind thoughts into more helpful feedback.
2. Focus on what goes well for you. Are you so used to focusing on your problems that they are all you see? Next time you catch yourself dwelling on problems or complaints about yourself or your day, find something positive to counter it. Each day, try writing down or anything to remind yourself about the three good things about yourself, and/or three things that went well that day because of your action or effort.
3. Aim for effort rather than perfection. Some people get held back by their own pressure to be perfect. They lose out because they don't try. If you think, "I won't audition for the play because I probably won't get the lead," it's guaranteed that role will go to someone else.
4. View mistakes as learning opportunities. Accept that you will make mistakes. Everyone does. They're part of learning. Instead of thinking, "I always mess up" remind yourself that it's not about always, just this specific situation. What can you do differently next time?
5. Edit thoughts that get you feeling inferior. Do you often compare yourself with others and come up feeling less accomplished or less talented? Notice what you're thinking. Something like: "She's so much better than I am. I'm no good at basketball. I should just stop playing" leads to feeling inferior, not to feeling good about yourself.
6. Remind yourself that everyone excels at different things. Focus on what you do well, and cheer on others for their success. Thinking more like this: "She's a great basketball player — but the truth is, I'm a better musician than athlete. Still, I'll keep playing because I enjoy it.”, helps you accept yourself and make the best of the situation.
7. Try new things, and give yourself credit. Experiment with different activities to help you get in touch with your talents. Then take pride in your new skills. Think about the good results. For example: I signed up for track and found out I'm pretty fast! These positive thoughts become good opinions of yourself, and add to self-esteem.
8. Recognize what you can change and what you can't. If you realize that you're unhappy with something about yourself that you can change (like getting to a healthy weight), start today. If it's something you can't change (like your height), work on accepting it. Obsessing about our "flaws" can really skew your opinion of yourself and bring down your self-esteem. Most of the time, other people don't even notice these things!
9. Set goals. Think about what you'd like to accomplish. Then make a plan for how to do it. Stick with your plan, and keep track of your progress. Train your inner voice to remind you of what you are trying to accomplish. For example: "I've been following my plan to exercise every day for 45 minutes. I feel good that I've kept my promise to myself. I know I can keep it up."
10. Take pride in your opinions and ideas. Don't be afraid to voice them. If someone disagrees, it's not a reflection on your worth or your intelligence. That person just sees things differently from you.
11. Accept compliments. When self-esteem is low, it's easy to overlook the good things people say about us. We don't believe it when someone says a nice thing. Instead, we think, "…yeah, but I'm not all that great…" and we brush off the compliment. Instead, let yourself absorb a compliment, appreciate it, and take it seriously. Give sincere compliments, too.
12. Make a contribution. Tutor a classmate who's having trouble, help clean up your neighborhood, participate in a walkathon for a good cause, or volunteer your time in some other way. When you can see that what you do makes a difference, it builds your positive opinion of yourself, and makes you feel good. That's self-esteem.
13. Relax and have fun. Do you ever think things like "I'd have more friends if I were more attractive"? Thoughts like these can set you on a path to low self-esteem because they focus on what's not perfect instead of making the best of what is. Spend time with the people you care about, do the things you love, and focus on what's good. That helps you feel good about yourself, just as you are.
With the right choices that we make, we lead ourselves to a better path for our future. Make your actions count by making the right choices!