Stick Up For Yourself! Every Kid’s Guide to Personal Power and Positive Self-Esteem

   I came to the endeavor of teaching how to build self-esteem and inner security from an unexpected direction, following my immersion in two very different kinds of inner experiences: shame and power. Shame is the feeling of inferiority, of defeat, transgression, alienation, and worthlessness. No other feeling is more deeply disturbing to us—not fear, not anger—because shame feels like a wound on the inside. In this way, shame always diminishes self-regard, self-esteem. 
   Power, or more precisely personal power, does not refer to power over anyone else, only to power in relation to others. In this context, power is about having equal power whenever that is feasible in a relationship, or at the very least maintaining some degree of shared power. Children, adolescents, adults—we all need a measure of power in our lives. Thus, personal power always elevates self-esteem, while counteracting shame always enhances personal power. And effectively regulating shame likewise diminishes powerlessness, which is itself an inevitable source of new shame. 
   Forty years ago, I found myself asking an unexpected question: Can the knowledge of shame and power be translated into teachable, learnable skills? Can we define ideas precisely enough to translate them into psychological skills—skills as essential to thriving as reading, writing, and arithmetic? Simply put, can we teach people actual skills in living? 
   One question led to another. If self-esteem can be taught, what is the action that builds self-esteem? What actions strengthen inner security? Which actions build relationships based at a minimum on some degree of shared power, if not on equal power? Ideas also had to be translated into actions that anyone could learn, adult or child. 
   An experiment in teaching arose from this early beginning. Out of the interplay between shame and power, a set of tools emerged for building self-esteem, personal power, and inner security. What ultimately developed was an actual curriculum for emotional and interpersonal learning, the foundation for this book. 
    This is a program for both learning and teaching self-esteem and inner security. It is both a curriculum for self-teaching, and for teaching children and adolescents, and by extension, the adults who care for them—because theory is translated into teachable and learnable tools that can be mastered through practice.