Some time ago we published in Peques and Más que self-esteem has to be built since childhood so that when children grow up they have initiative and can approach the challenges with joy and confidence. Then we said that we agreed and that it is very important to work on the children's self-esteem. However, a few months ago, a tweet by Mario López de Ávila opened a new vision, and said:
In the formation of the child's personality, we must promote self-discipline or self-control before self-esteem
The phrase comes from a book called Willpower of Dr Roy F Baumeister, who can be seen offering some explanations about it in a video below. In the part dedicated to the formation of the personality of the child, it effectively illustrates with many examples how self-esteem in children does not achieve great results but it is self-control and self-discipline that does.
According to the author the self esteem It has become a familiar word used by teachers, parents and therapists and that the challenge was to increase self-esteem in children, assuming that this would have positive results in them.
However, according to the author, the evaluation of the effects of self-esteem is complicated because it is difficult to ensure that the child's success is a direct consequence and because each child is different. And although there are many kids with good qualities also appear narcissistic and conceited people who take advantage of their condition. Nor has it been possible to verify that there is a correlation between self-esteem and school performance, basically because high self-esteem is partly a consequence of a good academic record. And although it cannot be assured that self-esteem impacts on the good execution of the task, it has been proven that it facilitates persistence even after succumbing to failure.
In the book Willpower it is also indicated that the narcissism It appears in people who have high self-esteem and who can impact people who have low self-esteem because it increases prejudice and discrimination towards them. In addition it also indicates that narcissism leads to greater aggressiveness that is revealed when you feel hurt pride. Apparently it has been proven that self-esteem has a strong relationship with happiness and acts against stress or depression.
Baumeister has also proven that high self-esteem does not prevent children from approaching, as they grow, smoking, drinking, using drugs or having sex early. In any case, high self-esteem encourages experimentation, which can increase early sexual activity or start drinking. An important exception is that high self-esteem reduces the chances of bulimia in women.
The book indicates the way forward with the self-control and self-discipline and especially indicates as a reference to Asian countries and specifically to immigrants who develop their professional career in the United States. Of them he says that discipline and self-control work from a very young age and that they are genetically conditioned to the ADHD of which there is hardly any news in Chinese culture. Stresses that the parents of these Asian immigrant children in the United States, have a behavior that could be translated as authoritarian and permissive, this is, setting limits although with many concessions, mainly give autonomy to children and pay attention to children's wishes. Apparently this way of dealing with children is rooted in Eastern culture and focuses on training, governing and loving children. And it is that the mothers of these children when they return from school ask them about their progress, are interested in what they have learned and try to help at home with the tasks for the next day. In contrast to this behavior is the European not to pressure children in their academic performance or, as we have said, eliminate schoolwork.
Baumeister's work is available in the link below and you can go deeper into your reading with examples, details and results of the studies carried out.
In my opinion it seems to me that it is an attempt to justify what is happening in Western civilization that has reached a level at which it seems that it is difficult for us to move forward and in which we have taken the child away from many responsibilities because he enjoys a lot of advantages. and props. This scenario is in opposition to the Eastern civilization in which nothing is taken for granted and in which to obtain results requires effort, attention, dedication, passion and much devotion so that the child improves or enriches the previous situation (almost always unfavorable).
In any case, I agree that although self-esteem is very important, it does not seem to help you achieve anything extraordinary except to not lose your enthusiasm and drive, even though it is the self-control which allows to obtain results. Therefore, it also opens the Baumeister door to the use of gamification in the educational process for its positive effect on the learning and training of children.
Here we leave the video of Baumeister in action presenting part of his work Willpower in a video of theRSA.org
Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength
Today in Amazon for € 14.27
