Increasing Self Esteem

Every person wants to improve his or her self-esteem. The efforts to improve self-esteem could be conscious or unconscious. This simply means that some people actively pursue the goal of elevating their self wroth while other tends to increase their self-esteem without knowing it. It is important though to know what areas in your life you want to improve on exactly. In this way, you are not merely working on external indicators to reach your goal.

The problem is not all people know how to improve their self-esteem. In fact, it is easier for most people to damage their self-esteem than to build it. Unconsciously, we tend to decrease the image of ourselves through negative thinking. There is nothing like a negative thought to make diminish or even destroy our self-image.

Below are some pointers on how one can improve his or her self-esteem.

Make a list of all your accomplishments

One of the best ways to improve your self-esteem is to take inventory of all your accomplishments. Be honest when you are writing the list. In this way you will have an objective view of your abilities and capacities. Also in this way, you will gain insights on what areas of your life need improvements.

Make an effort to improve on the weak areas

After making a list of all your accomplishments and after discovering your weaknesses, the next thing you must do is to strive to improve on your weak areas. Resolutions are not only applicable during the start of the year. You can make a resolution anytime of the year.

One of the greatest concerns of individuals who have made resolutions is how to stick to the resolutions. As everyone probably knows, most New Year resolutions are broken come March, sometimes even earlier.
To stick to resolutions, you must strive to change just one or a few things at a time. Promising to change many things at once is like setting yourself up for failure. Start and small and few and you'd be amaze to discover that your life is changing already.

Set clear goals

For you to reach a certain goal, you must first be able to formulate it clearly. If you want to lose weigh for example, do not just say that you want to have a flat stomach or a small waist. Say instead, that you want to achieve a 28 inch waist or I want to lose 10 pounds.

The advantage of having clear and defined goals is that it would be easier for you to track your progress. It would also be easier for you to create the best strategies to reach the goal faster. If you have clears goals, you will be amazed at how things seem to fall in the right place. Every circumstance, every person that you will meet will help you in achieving your goal.

Play a game

Some games have the ability to increase self-esteem. This is especially effective with children. Games are effective in building self-esteem since through them children can gauge their abilities and skills. Games can also improve the skills that the children already have.

Remember that life is a journey

There is a saying that the journey is more important than the destination. The same is true with life. So enjoy wherever you are right now and believe that life only gets better.

How Common is Bullying?

Many people think that bullying is a common part of childhood, and sadly, it is. Bullying affects close to half of students in high school and middle school. Estimates by the National Youth Violence Prevention in 2006 say that 30% of students either are bullied on a regular basis or are bullies themselves. About 11% of children are bullying victims while a slightly higher percentage, 13%, are doing the bullying. 6% of children say that they have been both the bullying victim and the bully at one time or another. This starling evidence shows that bullying is all too common in schools and the serious nature of bullying can damage the lives of these children.

Any child can be the victim of bullying, but some types of students are more likely than others to be targeted. Any child that is different whether it is race, ethnicity, religion, physical limitations or mental limitations is at a higher risk of being bullied. Bullying is more common among boys than girls and is more likely to be physical. It is common for bullying among girls to be emotional and based on what children say about each other. Bullying can take place anywhere that children interact, including on the computer and over the phone.

Bullying is common even from children who are confident and popular. A common misconception about bullying is that bullies are usually children with low self-esteem and are trying to compensate for their own problems. This is not the case and frequently bullies are confident, popular students who pick on others for the fun of it. Bullies often act out as a way to dominate others and to impress their friends. Bullies feel no remorse for what they do and are often in trouble in other areas of school. Bullies who are shown proper ways to interact with other are more likely to have serious problems later in life. It is common for children who are bullies in school to develop problems with the law later as adults and to get involved with drug and alcohol abuse.

Bullying victims can usually overcome the effects of bullying, especially if the bully is stopped before they have a chance to do any permanent damage. Not all cases of bullying have long term effects, but if not stopped in time they can. Children who are bullied relentlessly for a long time are more likely to be depressed and suicidal, even later in life. Bullying victims are also likely to drop out of school or do poorly in school as a result of all the stress placed on them by the bully. Bullying victims also tend to have low self-esteem that may never improve.

Bullying is a common and serious problem in schools today. Parents and teacher should closely monitor children for signs of bullying and stop any incidents before both the bully and victim suffer long-term consequences. The serious nature of bullying is often overlooked by good natured parents and teachers who think it is something that will be outgrown, and while that is sometimes the case, bullying should not be taken lightly.

Parenting Tips: Dealing With Behavior Problems Among Children

Behavioral problems are among the most common issues of parents with their children. Behavioral problems can manifest in their habits, due to psychological disorders, and can affect social relationships. Parents need to understand the reason for their children’s behavioral problems to help and encourage them.

Here are some common behavior issues that parents have to deal with:

• Psychological disorders

Psychological disorders can lead to anxiety, depression, aggression, and may affect the child’s mental performance. This can be a result of a traumatic experience like an abuse or injury. It could also be due to sudden family changes or problems like divorce, illness or death.

Children may not show their response right away to traumatic events especially if it would involve separation or divorce, death or an addition to the family. When changes like these happen, it is important to encourage them to share their feelings. Changes should be explained to them prior to the event.

Children from different age levels would respond to traumatic events differently. In younger children, it could manifest in their sleeping and eating habits. Teens and young adults would often show changes in their social relationships with their families, friends, and school performance.

• Habits

Habits like thumb suckin, nail biting, hair pulling, hitting or biting themselves could be a response to situations where children may experience tension and pressure. To address these, parents should reinforce the child’s positive development. Meanwhile, habits like thumb-sucking is better off ignored.

• Sleeping issues

Every child seems to have undergone sleeping/night-time problems, like nightmares, enuresis or bed wetting. For instance, about 20% of five years old wet their bed. By the time they reached 10 years old, the percentage is just 5%. About 2-3% of children bedwetters, wet their bed due to medical conditions and problems.

Bed wetting could be a result of diseases, small bladder, food allergies, hormonal imbalances, sleep apnea, constipation, social changes and stress. Nightmare is another night-time issue. It is important to talk to children who are suffering from sleeping problems.

For bedwetters, make sure that they feel assured that bed wetting is normal. Never humiliate or physically punish them for wetting the blankets. There are different treatment methods that parents could use to help resolve bed wetting like alarms, use of medication, schedules and of course, encouragement.

Night terrors, nightmares, sleep walking and sleep talking are other sleep problems. You could start by having a calming bedtime routine to settle down the children, assure and settle their fears. If sleeping problems continue and disrupting the child’s activities, then there are sleep specialists and doctors who can help you.

• Eating problems

Children could be picky and they could end up not consuming the right amount of nutrition that they need. Eating problems could be refusing to eat, playing and not eating during meal time, and eating non-food items.

Children may refuse or dawdle when eating if they want attention, too pressured by the parents, eating time is not pleasant or they may be still full. It is important to plan their meals. For example, if they want to eat snack so close to lunch time, you could provide them small proportion of snacks which would still leave them interested to eat during lunch time. Make sure that there are no toys, television, and other disturbances during meal time.

Children could have eating disorders if they are dealing with complicated situations and emotions. Talk and reassure them. After all, they are still children, they are still confused with things and their feelings.

Another eating problem is when children eat non-food items. This disorder is called Pica. This disorder could be a result of nutritional deficiencies that target specific cravings, mental problems, parental neglect, or food deprivation.

It is normal for children to exhibit behavioral problems, since they are continuously learning and adjusting to their world. Changes, simple or drastic, could have a large impact on them that parents sometimes miss. Talking, encouragement, reassurance and professional help (if necessary) could help parents deal with these issues.