Self Esteem and Moral Reasoning

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a. Much has been said about children’s self-esteem in the past 20 years: Discuss the implications of building a child’s “self-esteem” without helping a child master any competencies in any of the areas of the multiple intelligences, character, behavior, or spiritual development. Any attempt to encourage or develop healthy “self-esteem” without any external help is going to be difficult without any guidance. The factors stated in the assignment’s question; the multiple intelligences, character, behavior, or spiritual development are far too important in understanding one’s “self,” to be left to chance. Any one of these areas of moral development are not formed in a vacuum, and without the gentle prodding’s given to a young child, the scolding delivered to middle children, or the or discipline meted out to adolescents by loving caregivers, emotional chaos (in the writer’s opinion,) will likely occur. The “spirit” (the term I shall use to define the conduit between psycho-emotional sub-conscious thought, and conscious thought) is a complicated construct, built from the information gathered from our life experiences. The biopsychosocial construct of the spirit begins at birth and can never – ultimately – be complete so, it is continually a work in progress. In absence of any meaningful emotional interaction, the spirit exists more or less in a weakened state, leaving an impaired pathway from our “soul” (emotional memories) to our “conscious self” (existence.) Consequently, positive and negative self-esteem are two products of the biopsychosocial environment in which a younger child may exist. Positive and negative reinforcement by caretakers will be the most influential factor in the development of a child’s positive or ne... ... middle of paper ... ...ouraging an easier path to scaffolding information. Parenting that incorporates instruction in the cultural norms of the family (micro-culture,) and a healthy respect for authority, co-regulation, (learning shared responsibility) and acceptance of cultural differences, (macro-culture) will ultimately create a framework for an individual to grow into a well-rounded adult (Craig & Dunn, pp. 236-237). d. Find a copy of your high school yearbook or a picture of yourself in high school to bring to Workshop Three. With apologies, after thirty years, I don’t quite know where my old photographs of me are. Suffice to say, I was a shaggy hippy with curly hair that exploded from my head down to my shoulders. I was quite introverted and I wore beige work-clothes to blend into the world. I was pretty big at that time, same as now, so the camouflage didn’t work too well.

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