Self-esteem: Teens feel great about themselves — but are they headed for a fall? - chicagotribune.com

Self-esteem: Teens feel great about themselves — but are they headed for a fall? - chicagotribune.com

I am confident that a survey of teachers and coaches in 2010 would reveal that the issue of self-esteem is a common double-edged sword in working with young people today. There is no question that self-esteem is an important factor in anyone's personal development. At the same time, a sense of humility and realistic awareness about one's strengths and weaknesses is invaluable. Sadly, in my estimation, the humility and realistic awareness are, in my opinion, relatively uncommon for 14-15 year olds. Perhaps its a normal part of their maturation process. Maybe its hormones. Are teenagers invincible in their minds? You know the answer. Maybe this happens naturally, or maybe its the times we are in, or maybe its a result of parental behaviors in recent years. I don't know. What I do know is that one of the hardest challenges our teachers and coaches have is establishing high expectations and challenges for students and athletes who have come to believe that they are wonderful and special and "off the charts" and above average as they say in Lake Woebegone....and then struggle or react badly when their efforts are judged to be inadequate. Presumably every student starts a class with a gap between where they are and where they need to be or want to be....working hard, overcoming obstacles, responding to adversity, coping with challenges are all a part of the educational learning process. In fact, they are critical elements of the process. Unfortunately, how many students and parents conclude that the teacher or coach doesn't like me or is incompetent or is unfair or is mean-spirited or is too hard or is humiliating when all a teacher and coach are trying to do is PUSH someone to excel, to get better, to reach higher than they think that they can. Adolescents, in my experience, are not great judges of their own skill sets or particularly objective when evaluating their talents compared with others. If their self-esteem is inflated by a false sense of reality, it makes life harder for them (frustration), their parents (frustration), and their teachers and coaches (frustration). See a pattern here?
Earlier this year, I read a Sports Illustrated article about a gifted young NCAA female athlete who was considered to be the best athlete this year in her particular sport. The most compelling comment in the article was from a coach who said that this athlete ALWAYS understood that her coaches were trying to make her better, listened to their criticisms and worked endlessly to overcome these weaknesses. She was a coach's dream and became the number one player in her sport. I wonder how many of her competitors failed to improve under similar circumstances, girls blessed with similar or even greater talent but who failed to appreciate that parents and teachers and coaches were trying to help them get better by addressing their weaknesses. The athlete who listens to a coach, the student who listens to the teacher, the child who listens to the parent....and then responds to observations regarding weakness by working to address the problem rather than pointing a finger and resisting efforts to improve is going to succeed. Why would a person resist the urge to get better? If your self-esteem is so high that it is unrealistic and therefore you are overly sensitive to criticism, you will stagnate and/or fall behind. This is the great danger of self-esteem from my perspective.
Teachers and coaches who convey to their students and athletes that they love them and that's why they have high expectations are the professionals who can overcome this challenge. John Maxwell says it well - "Students don't care how much you know until they know how much you care". Self-esteem misconceptions can be melted away when a student works with professional educators who effectively demonstrate that they love their students unconditionally.