Book Review: Helping Children to Build Self Esteem: A Photocopiable Activities Book

Book Review: Helping Children to Build Self Esteem: A Photocopiable Activities Book
Deborah Plummer
Published by Jessica Kingsley
£15.95; ISBN: 1853029270

STAR RATING: 4/5

Helping Children to Build Self-Esteem is an activities programme designed to help children to use their imaginations to raise their self-esteem, problem solve more effectively and to make friends.  Plummer feels that good self-esteem is essential for children to learn, and should be a central goal for schools, writes Sarah Chalmers.

It contains clear instructions for people working with children to put together a group programme, and whilst Plummer emphasises helping children with speech and language difficulties, it would be easy to adapt the activities to other children. The activities would work best in a circle time environment. Whilst the sheets could be adapted for working with children on an individual basis, some children might struggle to come up with enough ideas to fill in some of the sheets successfully, and I’d be worried that this would put children off.

One limitation is the age group of children it would be suitable for.  Although Plummer uses examples of children as old as 12, I think most children over 10 would find the illustrations  a little babyish.  Also, the amount of writing and lack of space for drawing may be intimidating for younger children, especially if they had special needs. Overall, though, Raising Self-Esteem is a useful resource.

 Sarah Chalmers is a LSC assistant psychologist in Essex