Psychology Selection - Children - The Self Esteem Movement - The Optimistic Child

 The following is an extract of the book The Optimistic Child (Martin Seligman, University of Pennsylvania)

The Self Esteem Movement

 We were surprised by what we saw in the public schools, though we probably should not have been, because what we saw just reflects the way most American parents of the boomer vintage are now raising their children. Armies of American teachers, along with American parents, are straining to bolster children's self-esteem. That sounds innocuous enough, but the way they do it often erodes children's sense of worth. By emphasizing how a child feels, at the exense of what the child does - mastery, persistence, overcoming frustration and boredom, and meeting challenge - parents and teachers are making this generation of children more vulnerable to depression.

Here is a smattering of what we saw in the Aemerican classrooms:

• "Building Self-Esteem with Koala-Roo" contains an exercise with "YOU ARE SPECIAL" written fourteen times on one page, followed by "I am very glad that I have been your x grade teacher. There's no one else quite like you."
• A poster picturing clapping hands announces, "We applaud Ourselves!"
• A cartoon character admires itself in a mirror and urges, "Make Loving Yourself a Habit."
• Fill-in-the-blank ask kids to complete "I am special because..." with achievements such as "I know how to play," "I can color," and "Everybody makes me happy." 

 The rationale for this puffery is explicit: "...the basis for everything we do is self-esteem. Therefore, if we can do something to give children a stronger sense of themselves, starting in preschool, they'll be [a lot wiser] in they choices they make."

The effects of teaching self-esteem are not confined to teachers mouthing self-contradictory slogans (if everybody is special, is anybody special?). Kids soon learn to ignore such flattery as insincere anyway. The self-esteem movement has teeth. It has helped lead to the abolition of tracking, lest those on lower tracks suffer damaged self-esteem; to the abandonment of IQ testing, lest those who score low feel low self-esteem; to massive grade inflation, lest those who earn D's feel bad; to teaching aimed at the very bottom of the class, to spare the feelings of the kids slower to learn (now that they are untracked); to competition becoming a dirty word; to the demise of rote memorization of epic material; and to less plain old hard work. Each tactic is used to protect the feelings of self-esteem of the kids who would otherwise be outshone. This gain is deemed to outweigh any benefits lost to the kids who would shine.