Category: Self-image

‘Self-esteem’ takes a knock!

self-esteem-kitten-lion

Much is read and written about self-esteem.  The Rowntree trust has published a report. They say;

Low self-esteem has come to be seen as the cause for a wide range of personal and social ills, from crime and drug addiction, to educational failure and suicide attempts. For these reasons much effort is invested in raising self-esteem, particularly among young people. But can high self-esteem really be the magic bullet this effort assumes?

Through a comprehensive review of the available research evidence, this report examines the case for this assumption. Separate sections of the report look at:

  • the popular image of high self-esteem as an all-purpose social ‘vaccine’, and scientific attempts to define and measure self-esteem;
  • what is known about the links between low self-esteem and a range of problem behaviours;
  • the origins of low self-esteem;
  • the relative effectiveness of different kinds of interventions intended to raise self-esteem.

The report raises serious doubts as to the value of investing in programmes to enhance self-esteem, given the very limited impact such programmes are likely to have on most problem behaviour.

Go HERE to get a four page summary.

yuuk

Selfhelp Magazine – a wonderful source of helpful articles

Selfhelp Magazine is an astonishing source of advice for nearly every concern under the sun. There blurb reads thus;

Welcome to SelfhelpMagazine, your trusted self help website and online psychology magazine since 1994. In our pages, you will find peer-reviewed educational materials written by professionals who have gathered self help tips from general psychology research and applied them to your everyday life. You will find our discussion forums are civilized and our self-help blog will raise your eyebrows – in a good way. We bring you cartoons, self help books, and self help resources from around the world. Enjoy the “labor of love” delivered to you by more than 300 professionals who volunteered to create SHM, one of the first, most popular and free self-help websites online!

Several cartoonists have supported the magazine’s work including Randy Glasbergan.  Go HERE for the magazine and HERE for Randy’s work

Toxic Childhood, its healing and ‘It’s never too late to have a happy childhood’

The idea that the lives we are constructing (or allowing others to construct) for our children are toxic is surely part of the wider debate on education, and therefore it is as old as debate on education. However it has been given a major boost by a book by Sue Palmer called Toxic Childhood which stimulated a variety of articles in the educational and general press.

Amazon’s Book Description

One in six children in the developed world is diagnosed as having ‘developmental or behavioural problems’, and the number is rising by 25% each year – this book explains why and shows what can be done about it

Synopsis

Children throughout the developed world are suffering: instances of obesity, dyslexia, ADHD, bad behaviour and so on are all on the rise. And it’s not simply that our willingness to diagnose has increased, there are very real and growing problems. Sue Palmer, a former head teacher and literacy expert, has researched into a whole range of problem areas, from poor diet, a lack of exercise and sleep deprivation to a range of modern difficulties that are having a major effect: television, computer games, mobile phones. This combination of factors, added to the increasingly busy and stressed life of parents, means that we are developing a toxic new generation. Sue Palmer’s wonderful book illustrates the latest research from around the world – in Japan, for example, use of chopsticks is declining rapidly among children – and provides answers for worried parents as to how they can protect their families from the problems of the modern world and help ensure that their children emerge as healthy, intelligent and pleasant adults. Toxic Childhood is an enormously important book that reveals the issues behind our general concerns that ‘things are getting worse’ and shows how you can make sure that your own children suffer as little as possible.

It might be that the book has done a great deal of good in that it has started a debate that is widening even if it isn’t deepening.

The reason I went back to what I considered to be the ultimate of all questions; “What is it to be human – fully and positively?” The toxicity of what we provide for children is not just physical and technological – it is spiritual as well and to de-toxify, and prevent toxicity, we need to go back to basics – not to the nonsense touted by UK Prime Minister John Major some years ago but to basics that enable children to develop healthily and holistically.

What would you include in that list?

Mine would be quite a long list. Here are three chosen at random;

1) Enable children to maintain interaction with the natural world.

2) Identify those skills and attitudes that enable children to deal most effectively with toxic messages – what is the spiritual equivalent of Jamie Olivers’s healthy school dinners?

3) Enable parents to support their children in 2) through identifying and communicating good practice – why is there such a dearth of good examples – they don’t have to be ‘monolithic’, there can be a variety of views as to what constitutes good practice?

There is a lot of debate re the toxicity of the childhood our children are having – just Google the term ‘toxic childhood’.

My last word for now is to recall a short epithet that I found healing, ‘It’s never too late to have a happy childhood!’

—–0—–

All postings to this site relate to the central SunWALK model in the PhD.

Summaries are HERE

Answering ‘Who am I?’, portraying the world and finding ourselves

“A man sets himself the task of portraying the world. Over the years he fills a given surface with images of provinces and kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fish, rooms, instruments, heavenly bodies, horses, and people. Shortly before he dies he discovers that this patient labyrinth of lines is a drawing of his own face.” ~ Jorge Luis Borges, Epilogue

I walk the same three mile triangular walk almost every day – in exquisite Northumbrian countryside. The following question popped into consciousness; “From whence does the landscape come in which I walk.” Not long after the question arrived I came across a wonderful paper by Sarah (Sally) Hill of the University of Auckland (?). She heads up her paper with this;

It seems to me an interesting idea: that is to say the idea that we live in the description of a place and not in the place itself, and in every vital sense we do.
-Wallace Stevens

However reality like meaning made of texts is not only a matter of personal construction as David Chandler;

The range of theories about where meaning emerges in the relationship between readers and texts can be illustrated as a continuum between two extreme positions respectively, those of determinate meaning and completely ‘open’ interpretation, thus:

* Objectivist: Meaning entirely in text (’transmitted’);
* Constructivist: Meaning in interplay between text and reader (’negotiated’);
* Subjectivist: Meaning entirely in its interpretation by readers (’re-created’).

Chandler points out that the reader is less passive, more active across the continuum toward the subjective.

From The Act of Writing Daniel Chandler http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/act/act.html

References

“Landscape,Writing, and Photography”by Sarah (Sally) Hill of University of Auckland

SEE also http://rmmla.wsu.edu/ereview/55.2/articles/parker.asp

SEE previous posting re Triadic Forms

‘You browse, therefore I am.’ Paul McIlvenny

—–0—–

NB All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD.

Summaries are HERE