YOUNG WOMEN AND SELF ESTEEM
In a long term study on self-esteem in young women commissioned by the American Association of University Women, and done by (Greensburg Lake the Analysis Group), it was found that the average self-esteem quotient of a young woman drops by 50% between 1st grade and 12th grade.


This means that just living in today’s world cuts a young person’s self image in half by the time they are a senior in High School. When we stop to consider that self-esteem is the key element that enables a person to make good decisions and stand up for themselves, it becomes quite clear why 60% of all college date rapes happen to young women in the first 6 weeks of their freshman year of college. If a young person spends more than half of their lives having their self worth slowly degraded and then they are thrown into a completely strange environment, with little or no information on the nature of violent crime and what they can do to keep themselves safe, how can we expect them to make all the right choices. For ten years I was the Consultant for Safety Training and Information at the Colorado College, and worked for a dozen more Colleges and Universities in that capacity. What I found was that the vast majority of critical safety choices young people made were based on convenience or peer group pressure. It goes something like this: “Gee, this is the fast way to get from my dorm to the library and that is the safe way to go ---- I'll go the fast way” or, “This is the safest way to walk to the party but that is the way my friends want to go ---- I don’t want my friends to think I am a geek so I will go the un-safe way.” In almost every case, the young person chooses the fast way or the cool way, not the safe way.

Self-esteem , self worth, self image. What we do as parents on a daily basis to nurture and support these qualities in our children, and more importantly how well what we are doing is working, is the point of this article. Because of the nature of our society today, young people are inundated with the constant message that the world is out of control. Think of it this way:

If you want to make a person a manic depressive, just tie them up and make them watch CNN for a week. What is the message they would receive? The world is out of control, my God, the Country is out of control. Just look at the state of politics in America. I am never safe on the streets or even in school. What is the logical conclusion young people derive? My life must be out of my control too. Socio-anthropologists have proven that young people learn to perfect their language skills through peer interaction not family. An example: You take any second generation immigrant where the native language is spoken in the home and by ten the child will be speaking perfect English with an accent from the region they are living in, through interaction with their friends. This is a small indicator of the influence that people outside the house have on our children in today’s world. We have to accept the fact that we as parents are directly responsible for a small percentage of the information our children receive every day so we had better make sure the information we do give them is the most supportive and empowering possible. We also need to engage our children regularly about the information they are receiving and we need to find out what their concerns are and answer any questions they have. In short, if we wish our children to function from a belief system “My safety comes first,” we must help them believe that they are deserving of a wonderful life and that it is in their power to attain it.

One more point: Besides the alarming implications of the AAUW study as a whole, a very startling fact came to light that about 60% of the total drop in self-esteem occurs in young women between 7th and 8th grade. Talking to senior high women about safety in the adult world, whether at college or on the job, has great value but true safety and empowerment is a life style and for young people it is a family life style that should start very early in life. I often hear people say that it is much harder for children to grow up today than it was when they were growing up. In many ways our children do face greater challenges, but on the other hand our children have the benefit of having us for parents. Not to impugn our parents and grandparents, but we are the information age parents. We have available to us more information about the nature of child raising and human development than any generation before us. Think of all the fun we can have using it for the benefit of our children.

With the school year coming to an end I will address both going off to college safety and getting a summer job safety in upcoming articles. I will also address some of the factors that cause such a dramatic drop in self-image among young women and young men(42%) between 1st and 12th grade and how it can affect their behavior.

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