If you ask someone how important self-esteem is for a cheerleader (or anyone, for that matter), you will likely hear that self-esteem is critical for good performance – not to mention a happy life.
In fact self -esteem is considered so important that teachers, coaches, and parents bend over backwards to protect young people from feeling bad about themselves. The question is – is this really a good idea?
You would think that with so much boosting of self-esteem going on that the incidence of depression would be decreasing. In fact, the reverse is true. depression is more of a problem than ever. in children and adolescents. What are we doing wrong?
Perhaps there is too much emphasis on how a child or adolescent feels at the expense of what the child does. In other words, fretting over Suzie’s feelings is not as effective as helping Suzie achieve mastery in whatever she is attempting to accomplish. Suzie will feel good if she performs well. (And by the way, telling Suzie she performed beautifully when she did not, only serves to make her feel worse.)
There are no studies that demonstrate that self-esteem causes anything. Rather, self-esteem is affected by the child’s success or failure in the world. We should promote the “doing well” side of self-esteem. This means teaching children how to do things like – how to study, how to set goals, how to manage big feelings, how to manage disappointment, how to be assertive, and how to negotiate for what they want.
Cheerleading is a perfect sport for this to happen! A good coach indeed teaches mastery and patience and setting appropriate goals. A good coach will be honest and direct (and also kind and thoughtful, of course) in delivering feedback to a cheerleader.
Bottom line? Protecting children from feeling disappointment, frustration, sadness, and embarrassment deprives them of learning how to manage and grow from those feelings. Let’s all promote the “doing well” side of self-esteem