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<\/a><\/p>\nEverywhere we turn, people are wondering how to protect a child\u2019s self-esteem. In few areas today is this question more prevalent than in our cultural conversations about how to help boys grow up to be loving, wise, and successful men.\u00a0 In our new book, RAISING BOYS BY DESIGN, we share both scientific and Biblical research that calls on parents, teachers, and caregivers to distinguish between \u201cshort term self-esteem\u201d and \u201clong-term self-esteem.\u201d\u00a0 Character building, the holy grail of child development, is ultimately about long-term self-esteem.<\/p>\n
Boys know this already, we believe.\u00a0 They are pretty smart about whether their self-esteem does or does not need praise at a given moment, in a given context.\u00a0 They may not voice all of this aloud, but they wonder (though not in these words):\u00a0\u00a0 Why does our culture assume that self-esteem is best protected (or elevated) when we praise every child constantly?\u00a0 Why do we so often try to make sure no child loses?\u00a0 Why do we attempt to make sure no child feels bad for more than a moment?<\/p>\n
Protecting and building self-esteem is indeed crucial for healthy development, but the effort to protect near-term self-esteem at all costs can, in the long run, hurt long term self-esteem.\u00a0 Our kids sense this.\u00a0 They sense there is risk to their developing psyches when we adults try to\u2026<\/p>\n
~ remove the idea of earning <\/em>one\u2019s success from child development<\/p>\n~ rescue children too quickly from useful, painful feelings<\/em><\/p>\n~ force feelings and emotions to surface so that they no longer make us as adults uncomfortable, even though the child may need to ruminate on them much longer<\/em> for his own character and self-discipline development<\/p>\n~ overprotect children from failure<\/em><\/p>\nHow Struggles Build Resilience and Strength<\/em><\/p>\nWhen we place protection of short term self-esteem above character building and self-discipline development, we end up robbing boys (and girls) of the chance to make and learn from the kinds of mistakes and struggles that ensure high self-esteem in the long run.\u00a0 We say to these young heroes, \u201cWe will always be here to hover near you to make sure you never have to go through the undergrowth of your story.\u201d\u00a0 We say:\u00a0 \u201cWe kind of want you to gain strength, yes, but not if it means you really face hardship in battle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet, isn\u2019t it also the undergrowth, the dark stuff, the difficulties, the struggles, the suffering, and yes, the battles, that build a hero\u2019s strength, resilience, and self-confidence?\u00a0 Mustn\u2019t the boy struggle constantly to understand his own inner demons and flaws, and to understand pain and evil in the world for what they are?\u00a0 Can we imagine Moses, Jesus, David, Paul, or any hero who became a true servant of God (with high self-esteem as an adult) who did not go through (all the way through) suffering during his development?\u00a0 As Rev. Tim Wright, co-author of the Following Jesus: A Heroic Quest for Boys<\/em> rite-of-passage program recently put it, \u201cTo overprotect boys is to deny them their own journey of becoming strong, caring men.\u201d<\/p>\nWhile we must protect a child from abuse, we need not protect our sons from struggles.\u00a0 While we have, as a culture, come to overly protect short term self-esteem because we don\u2019t want any child to be abused\u2013we do not need any longer, however, to exaggerate the positive benefits of non-competition and constant praise.\u00a0 We can focus again on experiential character-building.<\/p>\n
As you study your son and his life, we hope you will take talk in your family and community about all this. If you see abuse happening\u2014if, for example, a coach is being cruel and repeatedly singling out a child for damaging humiliation\u2014this is of course a place to intervene to immediately.\u00a0 But if abuse is not occurring, we hope you\u2019ll talk about the value of failure and frustration that temporarily hurts self-esteem but in the long run will build enduring self-esteem and character.<\/p>\n
Thomas Edison\u2019s perseverance can be inspiring in this regard. Edison reportedly said, when asked about his failures to come up with a working light bulb, \u201cI have not failed. I\u2019ve just found ten thousand ways that won\u2019t work.\u201d He also said, \u201cMany of life\u2019s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.\u201d\u00a0 Certainly it is true that failure can stop a boy in his tracks. Fear of inadequacy can rear up like an impenetrable wall on his road to manhood. Boys can become depressed. Excessively critical perfectionism on our parts can harm our son\u2019s self-esteem in both the short and long term.<\/p>\n
But boys also need to know that we expect them to accept failure when it happens, learn from their mistakes and those circumstances, and find ways to redeem the failure and build self-discipline on their own. This is all part of character building, long-term self-esteem, and, ultimately, every young hero\u2019s quest.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Copyright Gregory Jantz and Michael Gurian, 2013<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is a post written by my two good friends, Michael Gurian and Gregg Jantz, adapted from their soon to be released, must-read book,\u00a0RAISING BOYS BY DESIGN, by Gregory Jantz, Michael Gurian, and Anne McMurray (Waterbrook, September, 17, 2013) Everywhere we turn, people are wondering how to protect a child\u2019s self-esteem. In few areas today […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1621,"featured_media":1039,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[24,327,30,328,130,58,45,28,9,73,329,23],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boys","tag-boy-brains","tag-building-character","tag-character","tag-failure","tag-gregg-jantz","tag-male-enegry","tag-michael-gurian","tag-raising-boys","tag-searching-for-tom-sawyer","tag-self-esteem","tag-thomas-edison","tag-tim-wright"],"yoast_head":"\n
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