Dear parents and educators, sheyichyu,


In the course of each week, I meet people to discuss different issues. Just last week, a young man sat at the other side of my desk and asked me for advice. He is involved in activities that are not good for his emotional, physical and spiritual health and he was looking for a way out.


In the course of our discussion, we went through each negative behavior and how it began; it all boiled down to that the boy got involved in this detrimental conduct because of a lack of self-esteem.

The Rebbe said these words: build self-esteem.



A long time ago, on a Sunday morning, a young man came to the Lubavitcher Rebbe for a dollar and a blessing. The man told the Rebbe that in September he's starting a new career as a teacher. He asked the Rebbe for a special brachah (blessing) and advice.


The Rebbe said these words: build self-esteem.


The Rebbe was telling the future teacher that of course he should teach his subject and tell his students stories, but ultimately, the most important task for a teacher is to build a student's self-esteem.


In thinking through different things that have worked in the past, I found that the following exercises have been used successfully to build children's self-esteem.
Firstly, tell each child to sit down and write a letter to themselves that includes positive things about themselves. The child doesn't ever have to show the letter to anyone if they don't want to. A great part of the positive effect of this activity is the writing itself. If they do decide to read the letter at a later date, when they come back to it they can recognize the good qualities about themselves.
Recognizing our own good qualities builds our self-esteem.


Next, let each child write a letter to the new teacher in the beginning of the school year introducing themselves in the way that they want to be introduced.


Many times, children feel that the teacher from the previous year didn't really understand who they were. Writing a letter introducing themselves allows the child to portray themselves how they want to be seen, not how the teacher from last year wanted to portray them.


A third idea is one used by an upper grade teacher. On the first day of school, she gets up in the front of the class and says, "Today we begin new travels in our life. Imagine that you are going for a job and you have to write your own reference letter."


She then has the students write an actual reference letter of their own positive qualities as if they are applying for a job. This forces her students to focus on their strengths and on what they can contribute to society at large once they leave school.


For all three of the above activities, when you tell a student or child to write between 5-10 nice things about themselves, it is interesting to note how many each child can come up with, aside from reading the actual things they chose.


There are many ways to build a child's self-esteem. These are just some of them. If a child can be in an

His pride in who he was and his self-esteem kept him from doing anything wrong.

environment where they can build their self-esteem, then perhaps they will have the backbone not to get involved in negative behaviors, because they will feel it's below their dignity.


There is a story told of Rabbi Moshe Meisels (Meizlish) of Vilna, a chossid (follower) of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi. When the yetzer hora (evil inclination) would come to him and tell him to do something wrong, he would say, "Do you know who I am? I am a chossid of the Alter Rebbe! I would never do such a thing!"
 
His pride in who he was and his self-esteem kept him from doing anything wrong.


All our children can be proud of who they are, as they are all children of G-d. Hopefully, if we can build up our children so that they have belief in who they are, then they won't allow themselves to be dragged into detrimental behaviors that can damage them.


Kol Tuv.


Sincerely yours,


Shea