Today’s world is flooded with certain stereotypes such as skin colour, body size, and height that have been set as appropriate by our peers and other people. Many young people are usually caught in the web of living according to these stereotypes that now affect their self-confidence, self-esteem and emotional well-being. In other words, these young people tend to live according to certain stereotypes to fit into their circle of friends.
This episode of Blackie, Yam-leg and lefty shares stories of a young adult who narrated her journey to sustain a healthy self-esteem.It highlights the importance and impact of intentional parenting.
One of the ways to deal with unhealthy comments from other people is acceptance. Acceptance helps us to control our emotions because we can’t control what people say to us. In other words, acceptance helps us control how we interpret those words from people. Another way to deal with these comments is through positive responses. Positive response to unhealthy comments from other people boosts our level of self-confidence instead of building defences against those responses.
In an actual sense, building defences against negative comments only portray and strengthen our insecurity among other people.
This episode highlights the story of John Sunmonu, a crippled man who is successful despite his disability. Sunmonu’s story points to the need to succeed irrespective of our challenges. In other words, our weakness shouldn’t be a hindrance to achieving great feats.
Another story shared was the intriguing story of Raquel whose interest and learning to operate a computer while working as a janitor changed her employment status from a janitor to a secretary within 24 hours.
The young lady in this episode extensively shares the disadvantages of insecurities triggered by building defences when confronted with unhealthy comments.
These defences triggered by negative comments are common in marriages, workplaces, academic environments and the likes. One of the dangers of these defences built over time is a sudden outburst of emotions bottled up over time.
Acceptance is essential in building and sustaining healthy self-esteem because it helps us prepare for opportunities. However, we shouldn’t accept mediocrity in the journey to sustaining healthy self-esteem and achieving our career goals.
The place of acceptance also involves accepting our height, physique and other features of our body. There is no standard on body shape, size, height and the like.
This episode gives a statistical breakdown of a survey on triggers of low self-esteem. Some of these triggers are caused by friends, family members and other people.
THE ROLE OF THE FAMILY IN BUILDING A POSITIVE SENSE OF SELF-WORTH AMONG TEENAGERS
Children are gifts and the biggest assets of the family. This points to the importance of intentional parenting.
International parenting involves helping a child to build positive attitudes and resilience against the negatives, giving them quality time and other virtues that will help them sustain a healthy self-esteem. Intentional parenting includes helping a child build healthy as self-confidence and self-esteem from childhood to his/her teenage years.
One of the ways to build a child’s self-esteem as a parent is having control of our emotions through avoidance of shouting and beating. An effective method to use in place of shouting or beating a child is the sandwich feedback technique; a method that points out the virtues and positives in a child as well as cautions the child where he/she has erred.
Consequently, failure to teach a child how to withstand the pressure of teenage years will make the child give in to peer pressure, self-esteem challenges and other emotional issues.
