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It is your first ever pep-rally in high school and your parents bought you what you believe is the most amazing outfit ever. You are super excited to wear it that on that day you wake up extra early to make sure you shower get ready and look great. As soon as you walk into the school you hear someone shout "Nice outfit" in a sarcastic tone. In your first class the girl sitting next to you asks you if you woke up late since your outfit seemed a last minute outfit and it smelled weird. Every rude comment makes you just want to run home and change from the what you thought was an amazing outfit and your self-esteem lowers and lowers by the minute. What are you going to do now? Your parents wasted a lot of time and effort trying to please you and make you happy to just tell them you did not like the outfit anymore. You do not feel good about yourself, the way you look or even the way you dress. But do not worry your not the person they make you feel like what you feel about your self is your self esteem and depending how good or bad you feel about yourself will go up and down, you are unique in your own way and you are wonderful inside and out.
In a recent research I conducted with a group of high school teens from Montbello High School 19 out of 20 teens admitted to at one point having low-self esteem. Most of them said that they felt like they where left out an not included in activities if they did not have the most recent I-phone, Jordan shoes, newest trending clothes, or even a car. These aspects made me realize that most of the time a factor of low-self esteem depends on materials not on how a person is or their knowledge. Symptoms that a teen has low-self esteem is a withdrawn or shy teen, afraid to have fun or invite someone to come over their house, and is terrified of trying new things since failure to learn will cause a bad feeling about themselves. What we can do to prevent low-self esteem is to not worry as much about fitting in. Yes everyone wants to be liked do not get me wrong but if our able to throw on that bright green top with an orange hat or scarf and feel great about yourself then do it. Do not feel like a prisoner in your body, you are amazing just the way you are and even the biggest superstars and singers feel self-conscious about themselves but their is not a day they give up on their dreams and neither should you. Throw on that new outfit your parents bought you and stroll your high school high ways like no one else has.
Having dealt with self-esteem problems in high school i completely agree with this post. Sometimes the best thing to do for yourself is to not focus on what others think because you won't be able to please everyone.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was a great post! I also feel that a large contributor to low self-esteem is the feeling that high school and material things are your whole world, and that there is nothing outside of that world. This is why I am a huge advocate of making sure my children, from a young age, are travelers and experience so many different perspectives. I think that by doing this, it will have a huge impact on their self-esteem because they will see there is so much more outside of school.
ReplyDeleteI feel like society puts so much pressure on people, especially teens, to dress or look or act a certain way. I love how you're article is empowering for people to be exactly who they are. No one should deal with self- esteem issues; people are perfect the way they are. It definitely is a huge issue that our culture needs to resolve.-Hayley Kal
ReplyDeleteThis is great advice! I think we all struggle with wanting to be accepted by our peers, no matter what age and stage we are in.
ReplyDeleteI definitely feel like the only things that seem important while in high school are material things. What made highs school not absolutely suck for me was the group of people I interacted with. I never payed much attention to "what the cool thing to do" was, I always made sure to do what I liked doing, wearing etc regardless of what other would think.
ReplyDeleteGreat post & great comments!
ReplyDeleteProf. Wortman-Wunder