Teen Self Esteem

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Teen Self Esteem

• Tim Conroy-Stocker
• Senior Educational Psychologist

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What do we mean by self and self esteem?
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Who am I?

• Think about responses to the question Who am I?

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Who am I?

• Physical Self
• Social Self
• Spiritual self
• Now what about the question Who do I want to
  be?

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Self Concept
From Lawrence (1996) Enhancing Self Esteem in
the Classroom
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Multiple self esteems

• Academic
• Social
• Physical
• Technological?
• Artistic?

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Factors affecting teen self esteem?

• The views of others
• Cooley The looking Glass Self
• Multiple self esteems?
• Social identity
• Psychosocial stages
• The desire to be aware of trends!
• The pressure to succeed
• Resilience
• Mastery
• Relationships
• Emotional Reactivity

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• Our picture of ourselves is not derived by
  sitting in isolation but is generated by our
  engagement with others.
• Bannister and Fransella (1980) The Psychology of
  Personal Constructs

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Eriksons stages
Age Virtues Psycho Social Crisis Significant Relationship Existential Question Examples
infant -18 months Hopes Trust vs. Mistrust Mother Can I Trust The World? Feeding, Abandonment
18 month-3 years Will Autonomy vs. Shame Doubt Parents Is It Ok To Be Me? Toilet Training, Clothing Themselves
3-5 years Purpose Initiative vs. Guilt Family Is It Ok For Me To Do, Move and Act? Exploring, Using Tools or Making Art
5-13 years Competence Industry vs. Inferiority Neighbors, School Can I Make It In The World Of People And Things? School, Sports
13-21years Fidelity Identity vs. Role Confusion Peers, Role Model Who Am I? What Can I Be? Social Relationships

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Identity vs. Role Confusion (Adolescence, 13 to
21 years)

• The adolescent is newly concerned with how they
  appear to others.
• As they make the transition from childhood to
  adulthood, adolescents ponder the roles they will
  play in the adult world.
• Initially, they are apt to experience some role
  confusion- mixed ideas and feelings about the
  specific ways in which they will fit into
  society- and may experiment with a variety of
  behaviors and activities (e.g. tinkering with
  cars, baby-sitting for neighbors, affiliating
  with certain political or religious groups).
• Eventually, Erikson proposed, most adolescents
  achieve a sense of identity regarding who they
  are and where their lives are headed.

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Identity vs. Role Confusion (Adolescence, 13 to
21 years)

• Adolescents "are confronted by the need to
  re-establish boundaries for themselves and to
  do this in the face of an often potentially
  hostile world. "This is often challenging since
  commitments are being asked for before particular
  identity roles have formed. At this point, one is
  in a state of 'identity confusion
• No matter how one has been raised, ones personal
  ideologies are now chosen for oneself.
  Oftentimes, this leads to conflict with adults
  over religious and political orientations.
• Another area where teenagers are deciding for
  themselves is their career choice, and oftentimes
  parents want to have a decisive say in that role.
  If this is too insistent, the teenager will
  acquiesce to external wishes, effectively forcing
  him or her to foreclose on experimentation and,
  therefore, true self-discovery.

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Identity vs. Role Confusion (Adolescence, 13 to
21 years)

• Erikson does note that the time of Identity
  crisis for persons of genius is frequently
  prolonged. He further notes that in our
  industrial society, identity formation tends to
  be long, because it takes us so long to gain the
  skills needed for adulthoods tasks in our
  technological world.
• So we do not have an exact time span in which to
  find ourselves. It doesn't happen automatically
  at eighteen or at twenty-one. A very approximate
  rule of thumb for our society would put the end
  somewhere in one's twenties

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It was different in my day

• Everything that's already in the world when
  you're born is just normal. Anything created
  between birth and the age of 30 is incredibly
  exciting and creative and with any luck you can
  make a career out of it.
• But whatever is invented after you've turned 30
  is against the natural order of things and is the
  beginning of the end of civilisation as we know
  it -until it's been around for about 10 years,
  when it gradually turns out to be all right
  really.
• Douglas Adams (1999)

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Do you suffer from Trendfear?

• Do you ever get a nagging fear that trends are
  passing you by?
• What is Pinterest? And is it important what it
  is?
• And will Summly have a big year in 2012? And does
  that matter?
• If you're a school Principal and you don't
  understand the implications of the rise of
  location-based websites and apps like Foursquare,
  you might one day regret it.
• How much dual screening do you get involved in?

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Do your children suffer from Trendfear?

• Combine this with the focus on the role of others
  in shaping your identity.
• From peers the need to be aware of the
• Latest music
• Latest games on iphone/android/ PS3/ xbox360/Wii
• Latest books/movies
• What hairstyle/weight/ exercise regime
• Which social groups are popular in school and
  what do they think/believe in.
• Subjects to choose at GCSE/post 16

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The pressure to succeed

• Im Stressed
• Where does the pressure come from?
• Aspiration
• Internalised parent
• Fear of failure
• Negative or positive goal state

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Resilience Mastery and control

• How optimistic is the young person?
• How self efficacious do they feel?
• How adaptable are they

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Resilience Relationships

• What degree of trust do they have in others?
• How supported do they feel by those around them?
• What degree of comfort can they take from the
  support of others?
• How tolerant are they of those around them?

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Resilience Emotional Reactivity

• How sensitive are they to being upset/ receiving
  criticism?
• How quickly do they recover from being upset?
• How clear is their thinking when they are upset?
• Can they laugh at themselves?
• Can they roll with the punches?

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Resilience

• The more mastery they feel and feeling very
  related to others gives students lots of
  resources and makes them more resilient.
• If they are highly emotionally reactive and have
  low levels of resources then they will be more
  vulnerable and less resilient

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Motivating and helping teenagers
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Motivating and helping teenagers Fostering
resilience

• Tell them to work harder!
• Working backwards in steps from a goal state
• Exception finding with negative or low mood
  states
• Scaling questions to identify preferred futures
  and next steps.
• Healthy food
• Good amount of sleep
• Good Mental health 5 a day

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Anxiety and depression

• Help students to recognise the physical signs of
  anxiety
• Help them to reframe negative thoughts
• Dont accept catastrophic self statements!
• Break down overwhelming tasks for them
• Normalise anxiety and stress

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The good news!

• Most teenagers with support from their parents,
  peers and teachers navigate adolescence
  effectively!
• There are lots of things we can do to foster
  resilience in children and young people
• Teenage anxiety and stress is not a new thing!
• New technology provides new areas of support as
  well as stress!