Remember when James Dobson began to bring the leaven of psychology to the church? I do. The church I attended at the time were devouring his teachings and books. It didn’t sit right with some of us and one woman told the preacher’s wife, “you are going to see this is going to split the church in two.” That woman was poo-pooed and dismissed. However, she was right. That little bit of leaven grew and grew to the point where the leaders could not discern a thing. Everything became touchy feely. Even to the point where a visiting preacher was allowed to stand behind the pulpit and tell how he was “ministering” to a grown man and the “Lord told me to bend him over my knee and spank him.” I am not joking! I should have gotten up and rebuked him right there. At the very least, walked out. But I was much younger back then, being taught you did not question authority. Well, things have changed: I DO question “authority” in every area of life now and if that were to happen today (not that I would be found in any church on any given Sunday) I would rebuke and walk out.
The problem with self-esteem is it is a lie from hell. We are not taught in the Word of God to have self-esteem. Jesus did not die to give us “self-esteem” but rather for Him to be esteemed.
I have noticed over the past few years that those with self-esteem, are full of themselves. They somehow think that no matter what, they are the most interesting person in the room; the most adored, the most anything and everything. Uh, obama seems to come to mind at the moment. But I digress.
A friend (who I will call Debbie) and I have a mutual friend (who I will call Suzy) from the past. Debbie just lost her ex-husband who had still been her friend to a massive heart attack. I went to the funeral over the week-end and her grief was breaking my heart. She told me the next night or so, that Suzy called her all drunked up, stoned out of her mind, slurring her words to the point where she could not understand her and ended up just hanging up. Suzy knew that Debbie’s husband had died, yet, she had called Debbie up to complain about what was going on in her own life. How sick is that? It goes beyond sick. It is selfish, self-serving.
Now some would say, ah, but Suzy has no self esteem or she wouldn’t be in that shape. Wrong. It is because she has thought of nothing but herself that she ended up in that very place!
Self-esteem is just that; SELF. Jesus told us to die to self. Not to esteem ourselves. I may be wrong here, but self esteem will always need to be pampered and nurtured by others in order to even exist. Not to say that we should not treat others respectfully. We should. The difference is, we do not lie to them in not telling them the truth about something for fear of hurting their wittle feelings. Example: you do not tell your 98 pound daughter who may want to be a fire fighter, “Ah honey, you can do whatever you want.” NO! It is not reality for a 98 pound woman to be a fire fighter trying to save the lives of others. Muscles and strength are needed. Who would you rather come to your aid, a puny weakling or a strong 230 pound man? Or perhaps a young man who runs down the field with a ball, but barely can write his name wants to be a brain surgeon. Are you going to tell him, “you can do anything you set your mind to.” You want him operating on you?
Think about it.
Article gotten here:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=234437
By Dennis Prager
By now, most people (with the exception of many psychotherapists) recognize that the self-esteem movement officially launched by California in 1986 has been at best silly and at worst injurious to society, despite whatever small benefit it may have had to some individuals.
The movement was begun by California Assemblyman John Vasconcellos. As the New York Times reported, “Mr. Vasconcellos, a 53-year-old Democrat, is described by an aide as ‘the most radical humanist in the Legislature.’”
In an interview at the time, Vasconcellos told me he had personally benefited from therapy. It enabled him to improve the poor self-esteem he had inherited from his childhood. He therefore concluded that improving other people’s self-esteem would greatly help society.
And so, California created its Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility, whose guiding principle was to raise young people’s self-esteem in order to increase the number of socially responsible people in society.
This belief – that increasing self-esteem among the members of society will increase goodness in society – spread through the rest of America like proverbial wildfire.
It turns out, however, that the premise was entirely misguided. There is no correlation between goodness and high self-esteem. But there is a correlation between criminality and high self-esteem.
The classic parenting book for today’s challenges: “Child Training Tips: What I Wish I Knew When My Children Were Young”
Florida State University professor Roy Baumeister (Ph.D. psychology, Princeton University) has revealed that in a lifetime of study of violent criminals, the one characteristic nearly all these criminals share is high self-esteem.
Yes, people with high self-esteem are the ones most prone to violence.
The 1960s and ’70s ushered in what I refer to as the Age of Feelings. And one of the most enduring feelings-based notions that came out of that era was that it was critically important that children feel good about themselves. High self-esteem, it was decided, should be imparted to children whenever possible – no matter how undeserving. That is why boys on losing teams are given trophies, why more and more high schools have ceased naming a valedictorian (lest the other graduates feel bad about themselves), why some states have abolished winning and losing in children’s soccer games (lest those on the losing teams suffer low self-esteem), etc.
A friend of mine provided me with a perfect illustration. At a Little League baseball game, he saw a pitch thrown a few feet above the batter’s head. Needless to say, the batter didn’t swing. But to my friend’s amazement, he heard both the batter’s father and coach yell out, “Good eye!”
For those who don’t know baseball, it does not take a “good eye” not to swing at a ball thrown over one’s head. It takes a functioning eye.
One result of all this has been a generation that thinks highly of itself for no good reason. Perhaps the most famous example is the survey of American high-school students and those of seven other countries. Americans came in last in mathematical ability but first in self-esteem about their mathematical ability.
But it turns out that feeling good about oneself for no good reason – as destructive as that is – is not the biggest problem.
The child-rearing expert, psychologist John Rosemond, recently opened my eyes to the even more troubling problem: High self-esteem in children does not produce good character, and in fact is likely to produce a less moral individual.
This flies in the face of perhaps the deepest-held conviction among the present generation, as well as the baby boomers: that it is a parent’s fundamental obligation to ensure that his child has high self-esteem.
Though I always opposed undeserved self-esteem, I, too, had bought into the belief that self-esteem in children is vital.
But as soon as Rosemond said what he said, I realized he was right.
And since he said that, I have analyzed the finest adults I know well. It turns out that none had high self-esteem as a child. In fact, virtually most of them “suffered” – as it would now be deemed – from low self-esteem.
To cite one example, one of the finest human beings I have ever known – an individual of extraordinary courage, integrity and selflessness – had a father who constantly berated this person as worthless and stupid.
Now, this father was, to put it mildly, a sick man. And he did indeed have a negative psychological impact on his child – to this day, this person has low self-esteem. But it had no negative impact on this individual’s sterling character.
The more I have thought about it, the more I have put Baumeister’s and Rosemond’s insights together.
If Baumeister is right, and violent criminals have higher self-esteem than most people, and if Rosemond is right, and people who do not grow up with high self-esteem are more likely to be among the finest human beings, then society has the strongest interest in not promoting self-esteem among children. Society’s sole interest should be creating people of good character, not people with high self-esteem. And good character is created by teaching self-control, not self-esteem.
These things are not created through humanist means. They are taught and given from and by a merciful God whether you believe in Him or not. You see, HE is all good. Man is not. For man to believe that he himself is good, leads back to self.
Now, let me be clear. No one is recommending that parents never praise a child or that parents seek to cultivate a low self-image in their child. And we assume that the child knows his parents love him/her. But, if raising good adults is the primary task of a parent – and it surely must be – trying to give one’s child high self-esteem is not helpful, and it can easily be counterproductive.
If you don’t agree with this conclusion, do the following: Ask the finest people you know how much self-esteem they had as a child. Then ask all the narcissists you know how much their parent(s) praised them.
Personally, my parents were realists with me. I had certain dreams as a child that were obtainable, though I did not achieve them. My parents encouraged me. However, they never once praised me when it was not deserved. I knew of some parents back then that let their children win at board games to make the child feel good about themselves. My mother never did this. Nor was she was out to stomp me in a game. She taught me as I played the game how to win. If she had done otherwise, it would have been cheating and would have given me the impression I was good at something when I was not. I can count on one hand how many times I beat her in a game of Scrabble! She was the best and she taught her children how to play, how to win and most importantly, how to lose.
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