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Proud Father Of 2 Kids, started this blog to extend my sharing to benefit more people for positive and fulfilling life, thanks to an advise from a teacher in Special School. Encouragement looks at what we can be and believes in the best for each of us. It is also love in action, allowing one to take time to meditate on small miracles of life, to build confidence in ourselves and build that confidence in others as well.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Sharing Knowledge On Understanding Child's Self Esteem & Its Development



F0r kids with ASD, social awareness isn't a set of concrete, itemised skills. Mannerism can be taught but learning to be at ease among others is more of a state of confident being that grows with careful nurturing of several important character traits, one of which is for a healthy Self Esteem.


Self Concept is a complex beliefs about ourselves, formed from 3 major source of information that we obtain from others: words, feeling and behavior. " What I think about myself" is often base on others' comments about me; "What I feel about myself" often comes from others' emotional reactions; "How I behave" is often in response to others' responses to me.



Ideal Self is our set of beliefs about how we should be, which can comes about from actual or implied critical judgements by significant people in our lives or by a process called social comparison, in which we compare ourselves to other people and set our ideals accordingly.



Self Esteem is then the overlapping of the above 2 components, it is how much we value our characteristics, a form of judgement about whether our abilities and qualities meet or fall short of the standards we believ are ideal.



Children who have low self esteem can display a wide range of less adaptive behaviors. Emotionally, they might seek constant reassurance about your affection for them or could be highly reliant on parents, as seen in separation difficutlies, Socially, they might not be able to have any fun, might be withdrawn or not being able to enter a group without becoming either too self-conscious('shy') or too boisterous, building & maintaining friendship can be a hinderance for their lack of enough confidence to assert themselves . Their development can be compromised as they avoid trying something new, refuse to take risk or be adventurous, or give up easily.



We can either improve their skills for which they value, or make them realise that they actually possess many of their ideal qualities, or lower our standard for them. There are few routes which may help improve their self esteem:-


1) Promote competence to manage success in a meaningful wway, because success breed success. Our children needs coaches to :-


a) break tasks down to acheiveable steps.

b) give positive instructions, very often adults may accidentally set children up to fail by telling them what not to do(don't run) instead of what they could do(take small steps on the wet floor)

c) encourage children to be independent about performing age appropriate skills, to give them something to feel proud of, make a big deal out of their success.

d) teach self instruction skills to manage task not only being able to perform but also being able to organise oneself to do it proficiently.

e) provide authentic & specific feedback so that children know precisely what they have to do to be successful.



2) Acknowledge their effort less their autistic inherited traits which they have no control over and celebrate their successes, focus more on process to maximize their potential so that they can have more information feedback about their attainment.



3) Encourage realistic ideals/standard for the children, by accepting first yourself, and respecting children and their feelings even if they may not have any control of the way they feel.



4) Promote risk taking by encouraging and giving children permission to be adventurous, learning through practise make perfect.



5) Teach children to evaluate negative feedback, by being a good listener to them and accept what they feel, cheer them on or by way of encouraging them to rethink about the situation and asking them realistic question to put thing in right perspective in moving forward.


Self Esteem is also influence by 3 self comptencies in 3 keys domains namely: cognitive(academic/school/career), physical(athletic/artistic), and social(peer group). Will hope to share more in the next blog post.


Walking in this path less travelled is a life long learning process with multiple extra effort & sacrifices, I am grateful to be able to learn this extra as he becomes the joy of my living.



Navigating the long and winding road of Autism means we work with an incomplete map and poorly marked street sign, there is no 1 fix solution to any problem or learning challenges. We just have to strapped ourselves to our safe vehicle call FAITH and believe that our travels will carry us in the right direction. Taking time to enjoy the views of the journey can be one great joy of living as we move along.



The purpose of life is to be masterful with what you have, by focusing your time and energy on activities on the things that make you come alive. The more you focus on what you have and learn how to grow with time, the happier you become, this is the path to the uncommon life.




Winners Statement;-



‎"Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning." ~ Gloria Steinem

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