Self Esteem in Outdoor Education

Healthy Self-esteem being promoted in the Outdoor has become something of an importance to the facilitators, and to those who organise the partake in activities (school teachers, parents), with the personal development of young children. Self-esteem is not increased just from partaking in adventure activities. In my experience of working in an outdoor centre it is apparent just how important healthy self-esteem can be for children, especially those individuals who think less of themselves.

Self-esteem according to Rosemberg (1965) is the way that an individual perceives to see themselves, this is for me the most accurate definition of self-esteem. in the outdoor we are trying to promote self-esteem in new way with children that they might not have experienced before. for example an achievement in a new activity such as climbing will increase how an individual will perceive themselves, and potentially effect other activities they will take part in.
Harter (1990), and Foxx (2003) have split self-esteem into categories, this is a much easier way of claiming if a individual has good or bad self-esteem, as they might have low self-esteem in scholastic competence, though really high social acceptance. I think that Harter had the right Idea by splitting up self-esteem into categories to make it easier to identify the weaker areas of self-esteem, rather than branding a person as having total low self-esteem.
physiological centrality is linked to self-esteem as it represents a persons self-values. these self-values are based on identity theory, the more central a component that the client is experiencing to their identity the greater the impact. we can link this back to climbing and self-esteem, if the closer the component (climbing) is to the individual the greater the effect on physiological centrality.

In my experience with working with people in the outdoor sector, it is my opinion that just being outdoors and engaging with others in its self is a huge step for some people, as just interacting, and overcoming situation, and tasks bring individuals closer together.

Stemba and Bisson (2009) were quoted as stating that many students involved in outdoor adventure program believe that just taking part in a low ropes course will increase their existing self-esteem, there needs to be an external element to increase the levels of self-esteem, such as Stienfeild (1997), suggests that stopping between activities to discuss them, and how the group have worked together is a great way to move forward in modern-day Outdoor learning, to build of personal growth.

I believe that discussing what the child is going through is key, they need to be able to understand that they are doing well, and how exactly the activity they are partaking in directly effects them, also you then get an understanding of the child's emotions towards the tasks. Getting an individual engaged is the key thing with increasing self-esteem, if the individual feels socially accepted by others, then their confidence will increase, resulting in an increase in attitude towards task, others and personal ability.

Further reading:

Harter, S. (1990). Issue in the assessment of self-concept of children and adolescence. In Leather, M. (2015). It's good for their self-esteem: the substance beneath the label. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning. 13 (2), p158-179.

Rosemberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent of self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton university press.

Stemba, B.  & Bisson, C. (2009). Teaching adventure education theory: Best practices. Leads: Human Kinetics.