Of course our days in the secondary classroom are packed-to-the-max with curriculum and testing, but we are doing our students a huge disservice if we neglect to incorporate Character Education and not teach them anything about how to build their self-esteem.

The danger of neglecting to teach students how to build their self-esteem:
School is more stressful than it ever has been for both students (and teachers)! But if all we do is continue to push our students harder and harder, give them the message they are never doing enough, they need to achieve higher, they need to work more, over time this will wear down their self-esteem which can then have a huge negative knock on effect.

The danger of neglecting to teach students how to build self-esteem, can lead to:

• stress, anxiety and depression
• impaired academic performance
• problems in relationships with others
• ​unhealthy mechanisms for coping with stress

This is not what we want for our kids! I came up with a quote that is very fitting: "The words they hear when they are young, shape the adults they become." so it's important we are sending our students the right messages. ​We want them to believe in themselves. We want our students to know their strengths and weaknesses and be able to set targets and have the self-confidence to go after what they want academically and in life. 

The benefits of teaching students about self-esteem: 
We all want our students to succeed in school and perform at their best, right? Well I don't know about you, but I often hear a lot of negative self-talk in my classroom: "I can't do this", "This is too hard for me", "Nothing ever goes right for me" etc.

"Growth Mindset" is trendy right now and there is a lot of value in it, but it really just scratches the surface: we really need our students to be delving deeper into developing their character using self-reflection and coming up with strategies to build up their self-esteem. It's one thing speaking with a growth mindset, but it is quite the other actually believing it!

The aim of building our students' self-esteem is that we will have a classroom of confident students who:

• believe in themselves and their abilities
• set goals and work towards them
• are more likely to achieve their full potential and beyond
• are more likely to help others and build them up too
• are generally happier

Sounds like the ideal class to me, right?!

How to teach your students about self-esteem:
So how do we do it? We're not all trained in this field but we can't leave this all on the individual school counselors, especially when most teenagers need this kind of emotional support! Character Education should be naturally integrated in our teaching anyway.

What I like to do is either devote one period a week for 2 weeks, or sometimes I like to just do a short 10 minutes every day at tutor time (home room) with a morning meeting and activity over the span of 2 weeks.
 
I created a guided PowerPoint specifically for this very purpose so that it can be delivered in one hit or broken down into smaller chunks. The PowerPoint coaches you through each stage with no prior experience needed - score! I have also included worksheets for students to record their thoughts (which make nice wall displays too), a homework task and classroom community activities. Check out some of the resources below:

In summary it's our job to teach academics, sure, but we can make an even bigger impact on young peoples' lives if we teach them significant life skills that will raise their self-esteem and encourage them to reach their full potential - and beyond. The risks of neglecting it are just far too great in my opinion.

Finally, please feel free to download these self esteem colouring pennants:

Recently I wrote about 5 reasons why we should be teaching our students to show gratitude and the positive effect it can have on a classroom community and developing good character. ​Showing gratitude has been proven to increase long-term well-being, improve health, relationships, emotions and help us bounce back from stressful experiences.

With the significant increase in stress and anxiety among our teenagers, it is more important than ever that as teachers, we are catering to our students’ emotional needs in the classroom.

Although there are common times of the year when people tend to focus on gratitude (New Year? Thanksgiving? Birthdays?) it is important to highlight that gratitude is not just for Thanksgiving and for it to be effective, should be done on a consistent and frequent basis.

Here are 5 ways you can easily incorporate gratitude in your lessons and help develop mindful and happy students! 

1) Keep a gratitude journal 
Encourage students to keep a gratitude journal to help them focus on the good aspects of their life and to appreciate their blessings. The benefit of having it written down is that more time is spent reflecting, and of course there is the option to go back and be reminded of past blessings during those low moments in life.

I recently released a new resource that is ideal for students! This journal contains 52 prompts, one for each week of the year. Each prompt is unique and encourages reflection on a wide range of life experiences, allowing for much more creativity and diversity in thinking and responses. It is not labelled by month or date so can be started at any time in the year – new starts don’t have to only begin on January 1st after all! You can let students take them home to complete as a private activity, or it can be done in school maybe at the start of the week as a Monday Morning Meeting, Thankful Thursday, or maybe even a Fortunate Friday to end the week!

This resource comes in both printable format as well as digital so it can be opened and edited on Google Slides, meaning students can use this on the go and on any device!

P.S. This journal also great for us teachers too, we can all take time to have an attitude of gratitude! ​

2) Mindful Morning Meetings 
You could include a mindful morning meeting where you encourage your students to think of others and fulfill an act of kindness to another person by paying forward any blessings they have received. For example, if a student was grateful that someone had complimented them on a new hair cut recently, maybe they could go out of their way to find someone to compliment too. They can get really creative with these, especially as more unique blessings and acts of kindness get recorded!

3) Thankful Notes:
Students can write a note of gratitude to someone special and you could send someone to hand deliver them / post them in lockers etc. I like to encourage a hand written note for that personal touch - in this digital age, there's something special about seeing someone has taken the time to carefully craft words for you! If you want to add some extra spice to this idea, your students will love these easy foldable notes that they could even colour in for the special recipient! Click on the picture below todownload the full pack that can be coloured in and you can also  
​click here for a simple free note you can get in the VIP area! 

4) Gratitude Paper Chain
A fun activity that will also brighten up your classroom, would be to make a gratitude paper chain! You can give all students a slip of paper where they can write someone or something they are grateful for, link all the chains up and then hang them in your classroom. Every time they see that chain they will be reminded of what their little note says, keeping gratitude at the forefront of their minds at all times!

5) Thankful Quotes
You can use these Thankful Quote Colouring Pages and encourage students to reflect on the meaning of them as they meditate and colour them in. You can also get students to analyse what they think these mean and how they can apply them to their own lives. You can download a Quote Analysis Guide for free in the VIP area!

There you have it, 5 ways you can teach gratitude in your classroom and build confidence, happiness and emotional well-being for your students! You can download a free month of prompts with a gratitude journal below:

Now more than ever, as teachers we need to be developing Character Education in our classrooms and supporting our students in developing tools that will provide lifelong emotional well-being and eliminate negative traits such as insecurity, selfishness, jealousy and a sense of entitlement. One of the best ways to do that is by showing gratitude.

Here are 5 reasons why teaching your students to show gratitude will dramatically help their well-being and make for a much happier classroom:

1) Eliminate envy
With the world of social media that we are living in, feelings of jealousy can be rife, especially with people publicly broadcasting their lives on sites such as Fakebook... I mean Facebook! As adults, most of us realise that people just tend to show the "highlights" meaning what we are seeing is actually a false reality. Sadly, our young people can still be very naïve and impressionable, so being bombarded with images of the "perfect life" increases the threat of comparison and envy. However, by encouraging our students to show gratitude on a consistent basis, they will become more appreciative of their blessings and will spend less time focusing on what is apparently "missing" in their lives.

2) Show empathy and think of others
When we encourage our students to reflect on when someone does something nice for them and then think about how good it makes them feel, this will lead students to start thinking about how they can show kindness towards others. We all know the domino effect of kindness and how wonderful that is for a classroom community!

3) Take control of their lives
By reflecting on good things that happen to them, it encourages students to think about why they think these happened and what actions they took that may have caused them to take place. They can then start consciously doing more of these actions resulting in even more blessings!

4) Develop maturity
A person's maturity is developed through their gratitude as it brings about feelings of happiness, forgiveness and patience. These are the kind of qualities we want our young people to be displaying!

5) Build confidence 
When students get into a habit of showing gratitude on a consistent basis, a shift starts to happen. Over time, instead of always focusing on what everyone else has or what they feel is lacking in their own life, they begin to recognise that what they have is pretty wonderful already and they are not "failing" at life after all!

So that's it, 5 reasons why showing gratitude is so important for our students and our classroom community!

Do you currently teach gratitude and good character to your students? If you're interested in an easy and effective way of doing this, check out this Gratitude Journal that will easily enable you to develop gratitude within your students and thus nurture their emotional well-being so they become more confident, happy and kind!