Personally I think this PC self esteem push to be pathetic.
"Oh NO!" cry the taxachussets soccer moms, "We must not keep score; Little Johnny may become upset!" Do we actually think the kids don't know who won? There are very important lessons to be learned in victory AND defeat.
Can you picture this one?: Said the PC publicly indoctrinated engineer; "I don't know if calculations I did on the shuttles' SRM O-Rings were right or wrong, but I FELT very good about them!"
My wife and I train our kids to have an ACCURATE assessment of their capabilities, traits, personality, etc. The self esteen push is a natural progression of the idea that our worth as people depends on our actions. This idea that our value is dependent on our capability in any area of life is a lie, and a truly wonderful precursor to infanticide (also known as the "pro choice" position) and euthanasia.
I do have a few comments.
I saw recent [last 4 years?] research which seemed to indicate that essential what many held to be self-esteem was nothing more nor less than having several people in one's network who affirmed that you were a person of worth.
That makes a fair amount of sense. Without some sort of consensual affirmation from our primary reference group/individuals, it's pretty easy to feel pretty worthless in a perfectionistic home/culture.
I do think the issue has not been well studied in other than fairly simplistic terms. I think it's more complex than even this great article makes clear.
A DIGRESSION FOR ILLUSTRATION.
I'm reminded of research on belief. Liberal commie BILLDO'S used to assert that Christians were the most biggoted, violent, hostile, rigid, destructive people in the universe. Rokeach and others helped make reality clearer.
There became known a couple of overlapping constructs. One was intrinsic/extrinsic. Another was PRO and ANTI.
Intrinsic believers [could include atheists in the sense that they believed in their atheism] were those who earnestly owned their beliefs in their hearts and integrated them into virtually all they did. Extrinsic believers sort of put their beliefs on like a coat for Sunday morning or for business reasons.
Then the PRO and ANTI research found the "indiscrimminantly pro religious," the indiscrimminantly anti-religious and I forget what the other term was but it roughly overlapped the intrinsic group above.
This was very fascinating to me in my dissertation research. I was reading--I think it was "The American Atheist" or some such title by such an organization. I was shocked.
A lot of my research was dealing with Pentecostal and Charismatic Christian groups. And here I was reading this very core doctrinaire atheist publication by the premier atheist organization. And it was reading like a Pentecostal tract. I was shocked.
If I had substituted maybe no more than 4-8 key words, the sentences and paragraphs would have seemed to have come verbatim from a Pentecostal tract or article. It turns out that a number of things tend to have a curvilinear sort of relationship--the ends of the horseshoe are more similar to each other than the middle to either end.
Anyway--it turns out, that many of the liberal commie types were the MOST BIGGOTED, MOST HOSTILE, MOST PRONE TO DESTRUCTIVE VIOLENCE ETC. In the subgroups mentioned above--the INDISCRIMMINANTLY ANTI-RELIGIOUS were the MOST BIGGOTED, MOST HOSTILE, VIOLENT ETC.
Who was least? The intrinsic believer--by a very wide margin--I think between at least 2 and 2.5 standard diviations different.
The indiscrimminantly pro-religious was the sort of person who SOUNDED [often loudly] hyper religious and usually had all the jargon down pat--was ready to spread it on thick at the drop of a hat. But it was mostly a sham. Maybe they wanted to believe, wanted to belong to that group--but somehow it was still more like a coat to put on and off for ulterior reasons. It was far from integrated into the fabric of their being.
I think self-esteem will eventually be seen to be more complex.
It is clear to me that people who feel lower than toe jam on the lowest microbe in the lowest cesspool will likely not have energy enough to do much even to themselves. They are more likely to be catatonic than violent. And, it's probably safe to say that most of the time, those people have suffered either a recent series of horrendous disconfirmations from their reference group/friends--or--they have never had much positive affirmation from anyone. And, probably they have had parental and other pressures to be impossibly perfect without any significant sensitivity teaching them how to improve.
SOME such people can rise above such--even maybe as a result of just ONE caring, affirming comment from ONE teacher in their lifetimes.
I don't think the research nor the article above differentiates much and certainly not well between arrogance and an accurate acceptance of one's own strengths. Arrogance usually seems to be a kind of reaction formation blusteringly trying to demonstrate on the exterior in brash, prickly, sometimes horrendous ways that the arrogant person also has a right to breathe air and take up space in spite of lots of people telling them they were worthless and couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time.
That kind of arrogance is not remotely healthy self-confidence. And it can foster a lot of horrendous behavior of a very destructive nature. In my experience, such individuals did not receive healthy affection, love, affirmation the first 6-8 years of life--much at all or not sufficient for their personality. At their core, they are terrified that they are, indeed, worthless, horrid creatures. And consequently, they seem hell-bent on proving it at every chance.
So they become sort of eternal school-yard bullies going about trying to demand and steal goodies, sense of worth, belonging, etc. that they missed out on and so desperately need.
Interestingly, though, there are perhaps other routes to a sociopathic personality. My adopted sister was one. My mother and step-dad gave her virtually anything she wanted. They praised her and catered to her nausiatingly. It was never enough. I can point to my mother's perfectionism and dismal understanding while insisting she knew everything. I can point to my parents inabilities to really connect with my sister on a heart, emotions, intellectual level that really demonstrated they understood her. Nevertheless, she did not lack for tons of affirming inputs from both of them. Still she became a sociopath on drugs and in and out of prison most of her 40 year life. . . . miserable yet hostile and demanding virtually to the day she did herself in.
She was brilliant--twisting both parents and plenty others around her finger without feeling close to any of them. She had great musical talents. She was arrogant and defiantly so often enough. But self-respect, self-esteem she did NOT have much of.
Prov 23:7 declares that as a man thinks, so is he. I believe that feeding constantly on the notion that one is scum tends to facilitate acting like scum. But it's not always a vividly direct, 1:1 correlation.
In short, I believe parents are neglecting their duties if their kids reach 8 years without KNOWING they are treasures made in God's image. And, sooner or later, at least that child and those close to that child--and probably society will pay for that parental failure. . . often enough, horrendously.
Further, life has plenty of negatives and pain. I doubt any of us are excessively affirming to those closest to us. If my memory serves me right, a marriage [or any close relationship] is at risk if the bottom line of interactions is not at least 4 out of 5 times net positive in terms of the feelings the individuals take away from the interactions. I forget the exact percentage but it's in that ballpark.
Arrogance, selfishness, abuse, perfectionism, sociopathy. I don't know that those are evidence of anything I'd call self-esteem. It hink they are much more associated with the opposite.
Then there are the rabid Christians who get on a theological high horse about "self-confidence." We are to be CONFIDENT IN GOD, not in the sin ridden, fleshy self. Welllll, I can understand their point and agree in a sense. But we are also made in God's image; joint heirs with Jesus Christ; written on the palm of His hand; the apple of His eye; bought with Christ's Blood--the most precious substance in all the universes of all creations.
Does it help to say repeatedly "I'm not perfect AND that's OK!" Maybe. One of my bosses was a retired Navy pilot, Nam wing commander turned psychologist on retirement. He had ejected twice and had walls full of commendations. At one point in his stary career, he had an office next to and reporting to the CNO at the Pentegon. Still, he said he had to post that on his mirror and say it many times a day for--2-3 months before he began to believe it.
Infecting someone with an unassailable sense of humble worth is probably one of the most valuable things parents [and others nearby] can give their kids. Those who give the opposite are asking for trouble and dishing trouble out to society in spades.
After a riot in Los Angeles, I saw a fellow being arrested on tv after bashing brains out of someone in street. He shouted into camera: "Don't matter what I do, I'm a good person." Thank you, NEA.
I also saw the head of Boys Town in Omaha on tv...he stated that they used to get boys who were angry and had low self-esteem. They were able to give those kids lots of help and turn them into decent citizens. Now, he said, they get kids who are angry but have high self-esteem, and they can do nothing with them. Sociopaths, one and all.
The comments I, as a teacher, thought were most interesting:
People with high self-esteem were NOT less likely to use drugs or become criminals.People with higher self-esteem tend to be more prejudiced.
On the whole, black children have higher self-esteem than white children.