Jewish Self-Esteem and Education
By Dr. Elior Kinarthy
Self-esteem is a psychological term that starts with the fact that all humans are born with feeling good about themselves. It is up to parents, grandparents teachers and other significant people to preserve and encourage a child's naturally high self-esteem. Jewish self esteem, is a social term that can be interpreted to mean that Jews are generally raised with good feelings about themselves as individuals and as members of an ethnic group. Preserving Jewish self-esteem can be challenging with the unprecedented rise in anti-semitism. If you dramatize anti-semitism by shouting, cursing or overreacting at home, it may create fear in your children or grandchildren and that can lower their self image. Children see their significant others as all powerful and if they see their parents as vulnerable, it can shatter the secure world of the child.
To enhance a child’s self esteem, I believe it is important to become knowledgeable of the cognitive stages of development researched by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. Parts of the Montessori and Waldorf School system are based on Piaget’s principles of child development. He developed the following stages; Sensorimotor (0 - 2 yrs), Pre-operational (2 - 7yrs), Concrete Operations (7 - 11 yrs) and finally Formal Operations (11 - 16 yrs).
At the sensorimotor stage, touch and physical affection is very important for their self-image and in order to preserve a baby’s self-esteem, it is better to talk with them at their level of understanding. “Baby talk” is not good for their development and nonsense babbling may prevent advanced language acquisition and could even cause delays in speech. An example of talking to a baby that works to enhance their self-image- ” Hi Kayla, how are you today?- here’s your bottle.”
The pre-operational stage, focuses on cognitive language development. Effective communication with clear pronunciation is very important and this is the optimum time to introduce other languages. Ages 4 - 7 can be considered the “magic stage” and you can enhance a child’s self-esteem by telling them imaginative stories. For example: “listen carefully I’m going to tell you a secret- there is a monster behind the bed…let’s go find him!” You then scoop up the” monster” in your hand and help it to disappear.
Concrete operations means that the training and teaching of the child is focused on solid objects with measurable characteristics. You can ask” How do you know your father loves you?” and the child may say “he bought me a bike”. Formal operations or abstract thinking has developed when a pre-teen or teenager can look at their parents relationship for example, and say they love each other because they treat each other with respect.
A very important tool to enhance your child’s self-esteem is to enrol them in Jewish education.
The education is generally very positive and focused on learning Hebrew and Jewish culture which is rich with holidays and traditions.
Private day schools have a higher student to teacher ratio and emphasize academic and other achievements, and this raises self-esteem.
Jewish education often teaches how to be kind to others and Tikkun Olam (Repairing the World). You feel good about yourself when you are treated well.
Children that are surrounded by their Jewish peers and teachers who have the same holidays and traditions can also raises their self-image.
Children tend to model their behaviours on the teacher they identify with and this can have a profound positive influence.