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Essay on Building Self-Esteem in Kindergartners
The development and strengthening of the young child's self-esteem is typically listed as a major goal in the guides for state and school district kindergarten curricula. While early childhood education has long been blessed with many curriculum approaches that emphasize and advocate diverse goals and methods, all seem to concur that helping children to "feel good about them selves" is an important goal of early education. The terms applied to this goal are variously designated as self-esteem, self-regard, self-concept, self-worth, and self-confidence.
“Frequently, the phrase positive self-concept is used, even though, semantically speaking, a concept cannot be positive or negative. Some sources refer to high self-concepts, even though a concept cannot, technically speaking, be high or low. The term self-esteem is preferred because it refers to a calibrated estimation of the value or worthiness of the self”.
Over a three-year period, Dr. Donald DeMoulin, Department of Educational Studies, University of Tennessee-Martin conducted four studies involving 950 kindergartners from urban and rural schools in Tennessee, Kentucky and Kansas. The studies looked at the impact of the “I Like Me” Program on different factors affecting the development of kindergarten-age students.
It analyzed the cumulative impact of the “I Like Me” program on the development of a positive self-concept in kindergarten children. (“Self-concept” is a term that encompasses two areas of child development: self-esteem - how children feel about themselves-and self-efficacy-how children feel about what they do and the affect this has on how they approach tasks such as learning.)
The “I Like Me!” program contributed significantly to the overall growth in positive self-concept in children involved in the studies. Pre-test and post-test results showed an average overall gain of approximately 7% in children involved in the studies.
On average, boys and girls experienced equal growth in positive self-esteem..............
