What Affects a Girl's Self Esteem?
1. 56% of students have personally felt some sort of bullying at school. Between 4th and 8th grade in particular, 90% of students are victims of bullying.
2. The most common reason cited for being harassed is a student's appearance or body size. 2 out of 5 teens feel that they are bullied because of the way that they look.
3. 9 out of 10 LGBT youth reported being verbally harassed at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation.
4. 1 in 4 teachers sees nothing wrong with bullying and will only intervene 4% percent of the time.
5. A victim of bullying is twice as likely to take his or her own life compared to someone who is not a victim.
6. One out of 10 students drop out of school because they are bullied.
7. Physical bullying peak in middle school and declines in high school. Verbal abuse rates remain constant from elementary to high school.
8. Researchers feel that bullying should not be treated as part of growing up (with the attitude “kids will be kids").
9. 41% of principals say they have programs designed to create a safe environment for LGBT students, but only 1/3 of principals say that LGBT students would feel safe at their school.
10. 57% of students who experience harassment in school never report the incident to the school. 10% of those who do not report stay quiet because they do not believe that teachers or staff can do anything. As a result, more than a quarter of students feel that school is an unsafe place to be.
11. Schools with easily understood rules of conduct, smaller class sizes and fair discipline practices report less violence than those without such features
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​Peer Pressure
Children often seek a sense of belonging at school and will engage in certain behaviors to fit in among their peers (someone in their age group). Even in preschool they are becoming concerned with what their friends think and do. Children want to be well liked and included in a group, which makes them susceptible to peer pressure (influence that members of the same age group can have over each other). Peer pressure has been shown to affect children as early as preschool age and becomes an even greater risk as they transition into middle and high school.
Peer pressure can impact children both positively and negatively--positive peer pressure may influence a child to engage in healthy behaviors while negative peer pressure can eventually lead to risky behaviors such as substance use. Every child is susceptible to various forms of peer pressure. Research indicates that parents and caregivers that engage in an authoritative parenting style— a child-centered approach often referred to as balanced parenting where monitoring and support are above average--not only foster healthy, positive relationships with their child, but also help the child build confidence and skills to resist peer pressures associated with risky behaviors such as alcohol use.
Peer relationships (relationships with children their own age) are important in a child’s life as they form the basis of friendships and, help develop certain social skills, such as cooperation, negotiation and conflict resolution. The importance of choosing and forming these relationships is vital even during the preschool years as peers have been shown to have strong influences on risky behaviors later on in life.
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What is Low Self Esteem
1. Low self-esteem is actually a thinking disorder in which an individual views himself as inadequate, unworthy, unlovable, and/or incompetent. Once formed, this negative view of self permeates every thought, producing faulty assumptions and ongoing self-defeating behavior.
2. Seven in ten girls believe they are not good enough or do not measure up in some way, including their looks, performance in school and relationships with friends and family members.
3. A girl’s self-esteem is more strongly related to how she views her own body shape and body weight, than how much she actually weighs.
4. 78% of girls with low self-esteem admit that it is hard to feel good in school when you do not feel good about how you look (compared to 54% of girls with high self-esteem).
5. 75% of girls with low self-esteem reported engaging in negative activities such as disordered eating, cutting, bullying, smoking, or drinking when feeling badly about themselves (compared to 25% of girls with high self-esteem).
6. 61% of teen girls with low self-esteem admit to talking badly about themselves (compared to 15% of girls with high self-esteem).
7. More than one-third (34%) of girls with low self-esteem believe that they are not a good enough daughter (compared to 9% of girls with high self-esteem).
8. One of the main factors in teen promiscuity is self-esteem. When a teen has little or no self-confidence, he or she will use sex as a means to build confidence.
9. Recent years have seen a significant increase in body dysmorphia in teen boys. Body Dysmorphic Disorder is a psychiatric disorder in which the affected person is excessively concerned about an imagined or minor defect in their physical feature.
10. Teenage boys can be prone to obsessive exercising, binge eating, anorexia nervosa, bulimia, steroid abuse and diet aid abuse.
11. It is estimated that about 45% of Western men are unhappy with their bodies – 25 years ago, only 15% were unhappy with their bodies.
Carrie's Sunshine Attic &
The Sunshine Girls