Session 8: SELF-ESTEEM BUILDERS

Transcription

1 Session 8: SELF-ESTEEM BUILDERS I. Items Needed Name Tags Paper Coloring Crayons Hearts (can be made form paper) Treasure Box II. III. Read Yes, Of Course I Can by Robert Fulghum (from the book, Uh-Oh.). Success Stories and Discussion (20 minutes) IV. Introduce guests (10 minutes) A. Have students introduce guests by saying one thing they love about them. V. Understanding Self-Esteem (5 minutes) A. Children value themselves to the extent that they have been valued in their creative self-expression, their expression of feelings, their successes and through their failures. B. Children value themselves to the extent that they have been loved unconditionally for being uniquely who they are. C. The core that allows a child to truly flourish is his belief in himself, coupled with realistic and empowering parental expectation. D. We must parent with the end in mind and continuously express belief in our children s abilities to grow and learn. VI. From Negative Self-Talk To Positive Self-Talk (10 minutes) A. Change negative self-talk to positive self-talk B. In groups of four, ask each member to share with the group by completing the following: 1. When I choose to discourage myself, I say 2. When I choose to encourage myself, I say C. Verbal angel walk. 1. Ask all participants to make 2 lines facing each other. Ask one person at a time to stand at the beginning of the double line and announce their dream (with pride) and then proceed down the line with their eyes closed. Ask the people in the line to make an encouraging, empowering statement as the person walks by. Have the people going through then line up on the other end on the same side as they started. 2. Proceed until everyone has had a turn. 3. Store some of the positive messages for your own self-talk and to give to your children. VII. Group Visualizations: Affirmations (10 minutes)

2 A. Enhance your child s self esteem and offer tools for success by teaching and using affirmations. An affirmation is a positive statement about a goal you want to achieve and state it as if it already has happened. B. Close your eyes and think about a goal that you very much want to achieve. When you have it in mind, raise your hand. When everyone s hands are up, instruct them to put their hands down and create an affirmation about their goals and repeat it silently to themselves several times. Next, picture yourself achieving your goal just as you want it to be. Feel the feelings of jubilation over your success. C. Now picture your child or one of your children who is struggling to achieve a new goal walking, reading, bike riding, makings friends, etc Walk in their shoes and feel the intense desire to achieve the goal and their anxiety about the obstacles. Let go of the anxiety and picture yourself empowering them with an affirmation. Then picture them achieving the goals and sharing their excitement. D. Open your eyes. E. Paired discussion: 1. What did you feel when you succeeded after affirming yourself? 2. What did you feel when your child succeeded? VIII.From Discouragement To Empowerment (10 minutes) A. Enhance self-esteem by making your home a place of empowerment instead of discouragement. B. Empowerment is offering belief, encouragement and support in a way that results in a person being more than he/she thought they could be. C. Paired discussion: 1. What are some of the discouraging things that you say to your children when they are frustrated or angry at themselves while attempting a goal? 2. What will you commit to do differently? 3. What might you be modeling when, in your own life, you meet obstacles to your goals or task accomplishment? 4. In what ways could you allow your child to be there for you and empower yourself? IX. From Critique To Encouragement (10 minutes) A. Use encouragement to enhance self-esteem and motivate instead of criticism or finding fault to force improvement. B. Have them choose an A and ZB. Ask the As to draw a picture of themselves. While they are drawing ask the Bs to verbally critique it. Ask the As to stop and comment on how it feels, then resume their drawing. Now ask the Bs to simple give encouraging remarks. Ask the As to comment on how it feels to get encouragement. Have them note their self-talk during this exercise and discuss what they learned. C. What similar experience have you had and with your child and what would you have done different? Why?

3 X. Parent Messages (15 minutes) A. Parents often use guilt and shame to motivate their children. When these methods are used, self esteem is lowered. B. Turn to pages in your workbook and complete the Parent Messages worksheet. C. Have the group share the answers to these questions. 1. What is the connection between childhood quilt and shame and the way you feel about yourself now? 2. What current actions are driven by the feeling that you can never be or do enough to feel okay about yourself? XI. Large Group Brainstorming Session: Ways to Say I Love You (5 minutes) A. Say, I love you often and in a variety of ways. B. Rules: Give positive feedback for all ideas, no put downs. C. Name ways that you can show your love for your child on a daily basis. 1. Spontaneous hugs, back rubs, stroking hair, foot rubs. 2. Comments like, Do you know how cute you are? 3. Genuine encounter times, useful ways to feel powerful, asking them for their help or advice. D. Additional ideas: Put a picture of your child doing something well and another one of his/her parent(s) hugging them beside their beds; put encouragement notes in their lunch boxes or on their mirrors. XII. Acknowledging feelings (10 minutes) A. Self-esteem is enhanced when you listen to your child s feelings without judgment, in a way that they feel heard and valued. B. Heart-to-Heart Exercise. 1. Have the group pair up in As and Bs. 2. Give the Bs a paper heart. Ask the Bs to give their paper heart to the As and share What s up for you? about recent feelings they have had. 3. Have the As give back the heart and use feeling stoppers ( Don t be sad, etc.), try to negate it or fix it. 4. Repeat the exercise and have the As to use openers or active listening ( Tell me more, What else, or That must hurt, etc,). 5. Ask the Bs to describe the difference and what they decided. 6. The passing of the heart is a symbol to you that when your child expresses his feelings, he is giving you his heart. 7. Do your children express their feelings to you? What feelings do you not allow your child to express? What could you do to encourage them to feel safe enough to express them more? What makes it difficult to do this now? 8. What is your new commitment on handling feelings? What about your child s and your spouse s feelings? Share this with your partner.

4 XIII.Expectations (5 minutes) A. Are your expectations too high or too low? Expectations that are too high make a child feel he is a constant failure. Low expectations make him feel you have no faith in him and wipes out his feeling of value. B. Ways to show belief in him: 1. Willingness to wait to allow your child to figure out a problem, instead of rushing in with all your adult wisdom to solve it. 2. Avoid using an impatient tone when your child is learning; remember learning takes repetition. 3. Get close and use a touch (your hand on his shoulder). 4. Say or silently affirm that he can do it. 5. Suggest that he visualize the desired result and do so yourself. C. Pair up and discuss: 1. Where do you see that you can improve? XIV. Repairing Mistakes and Learning from Failures (5 minutes) A. Traditionally, negative judgments have been used to handle mistakes. These are likely to be our automatic tapes that we want to change, such as, I can t believe you did that! You re so careless! These become negative self-talk and lower our self-esteem now and in the future. Punishing mistakes can take away the lesson and teach children to lie rather than own their mistakes. B. Think of a time that you handled one of your child s mistakes or failures poorly. C. Paired discussion 1. Describe to your partner what happened 2. How did you feel about it? 3. How did you child feel about it? What did he/she do? 4. How would you do it differently? D. Teach children to repair mistakes and handle failure with their self-esteem intact. Comment on what you see, i.e., You broke a glass. How would you like to handle that? What do you need to do to fix your mistake? What did you learn from that? What will you do different next time? What is the gift in this-what have you learned? Show belief in their ability to improve, learn, and grow. E. Paired discussion: Make a commitment on handling mistakes your own and your child s and share it with your partner. XV. Treasure Box For Self Esteem (5 minutes) A. Note: Illustrate this story with a small jewelry-size (3 x 2 ) box filled with slips of paper that state things you love about yourself, i.e., I love my enthusiasm. I love my ability to write and create. You may want to read a couple notes of examples. B. Think of your self esteem as a filled box with wonderful treasures that is locked for safe-keeping. You are the keeper of your treasure box; the keeper of your self esteem. Only you and God have the key. All the wonderful compliments, acknowledgements and awards that you receive, you can choose to add to it. Any mistakes, experiences,

5 hurts, teasing or cutting remarks that damage your self esteem you can choose to keep out of your treasure box. No one else can damage or touch the special treasures that are uniquely you. Remember that you are the keeper of your self esteem; you hold the key. C. Encourage your students to have each family member make a box filled with notes describing the qualities they love about themselves and keep the box in a special place. They may want to write notes to each other that can be kept. They can look into their treasure boxes for encouragement whenever they want a spirit lifter. They can add new treasures to their treasure box whenever they want. XVI. Next session is Encouraging Your Children To Do Their Personal Bests.