COUNSELING AND CONSULTATION ASSOCIATES, INC.COUNSELING AND CONSULTATION ASSOCIATES, INC.
Phillip L. Blansett, Ph.D.
1621 Eagle Trace Drive
Mount Juliet, Tennessee 37122-7428
(615) 758-7568
Website: http://DrBlansett.com
Email: DrBlansett@DrBlansett.com
Final Draft of Dr. Blansett's weekly article in the Mount Juliet News
Appearing in the September 9, 1999 issue
Pre-published edition
Neighbors Helping Neighbors in Parenting
by
Phillip L. Blansett, Ph.D.
Ok, we'll do it. We'll delve into this issue of SELF-ESTEEM. Prior to the "Great Depression" we were a nation of "Can Do's". A nation of families who knew who they were and how to go where they wanted to go. Whether it was from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gold Rush fields of California, or from the Mountains of West Virginia to the Land Rush territory of Oklahoma, prior to the Great Depression everyone knew that to "do it", to succeed, to make it depended on themselves. Neighbors were sometimes there, although in the frontier they may be hours or days away. And, by and large, people knew they could "do it" whatever "it" had to be, simply because they had to. And being able to do the things that one has to do creates self esteem. But after the "Great Depression" our society has largely come to the belief that individuals can't do anything. That individually we are "helpless". That groups, or unions, or government "gives" us whatever it is that we need. And we have somehow attached our "self esteem" to that same faulty belief structure. Imagine saying to Daniel Boone, "How's your self esteem?" or hearing, Sam Houston cry "They've destroyed my self esteem!" Self Esteem isn't bestowed, it is self-acquired. We've been lulled into thinking that, victims and helpless as we think ourselves to be, we are either granted "Self Esteem" by others or we have our "Self Esteem" taken from us by bullies. The concentration Camps of Nazi Germany were largely for the purpose of trying to get Jews to hate themselves, as they were being killed. Not enough to work, starve, beat and gas the Jews, they wanted them to degrade themselves and each other in the process. Many writings, and the procedures they describe, deal with this dedicated program of attempted destruction of Jewish Self Esteem. The same is true of the years of imprisonment at Hard Labor experienced by Nelson Mandela, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Geronimo, Joan of Arch, and even Napoleon. No, Self Esteem is a product of the individual, and is formed and nurtured by the individual's determination. Are there people, today, with low self esteem? Certainly there are. Must there be? Probably, until those who believe their self esteem to be low come to grips with their own responsibility to raise, increase and strengthen it. Many who claim low self esteem really have extraordinarily high self esteem as I've written before. The teen throwing the temper tantrum because a parent denies the car or a late curfew is most likely demonstrating inordinately high self esteem. And the parent would best not approach it fearful of administering a reality check. We do our children disservice when we convince them that they are the center of the universe. The awakening in a world of reality can be a real shock if that has been the case.
Next week we'll continue to examine how neighbors can help neighbors in parenting.
Dr. Phillip Blansett is a psychotherapist in private practice in Nashville and West Wilson County.
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