The Self-Esteem Garden: A 10-Lesson Program for Developing Self-Esteem in Young Children

Ages 8-11. A complete program for developing self-esteem in young children. The development of self-esteem has been a primary topic in the past, is now in the present, and will be in the future because it is a recognized fact that self-esteem is the foundation needed for the development of beneficial life skills. The Self-Esteem Garden includes 10 lessons based on 12 premises vital to the evolution of positive self-esteem. Each lesson has:

• An overview which gives the facilitator a complete description of what the children will gain from the presentation.
• Pre-Presentation Information, an in-service like presentation which explains the premises covered in the lesson and a detailed explanation of each as they relate to self-esteem.
• A step-by-step description of the lesson’s presentation to the children.

The program relates everything to a garden and each child completes an individual booklet which is added to each session. The Self-Esteem Garden analogy shows readers that:

• Good Soil is important to the growth of a garden as positive and supportive people are important to children’s growth
• Garden Tools are necessary to cultivate a garden as behavioral, cognitive, verbal, and emotional skills are necessary for children’s growth
• Flowers are a positive result of a good garden, and positive qualities, attributes and skills are a positive result of good self-esteem
• Fences are necessary to keep a garden safe from predators, and boundaries are necessary to protect children’s self-esteem and keep them from becoming emotionally detached, aggressive, or withdrawn
• Weeds must be removed from a garden because they damage the garden, and negative thoughts must be removed from the child’s thinking because they damage the child’s perception of his/her self-esteem
• Gardeners are the caretakers of a garden as children are the caretakers of their self-esteem

This motivating, all-inclusive program will give you the tools you need to help children develop positive self-esteem, including a pre- and post-program evaluation. The CD includes grayscale PDF files of all the reproducible pages. PDFs on CD are level 1 Whiteboard Compatible.