Features of self-esteem in anxious children of senior preschool age

Abstract

The work is aimed at studying the manifestation of self-esteem in anxious children of older preschool age. The materials of an empirical study obtained on a sample of children of senior preschool age from kindergartens in Ulyanovsk are presented. The study involved children aged 6,5 to 7 years. The study included psychological diagnostics using the following methods: “The Train Engine Method” (Velieva S.V.), the method for identifying children's fears by A.I. Zakharov and M.A. Panfilova “Fears in houses”, Test “Fairy tale” (L. Duss), Method “Ladder” V.G. Schur. The results obtained make it possible to say that among the sample of children of older preschool age, signs of anxiety in one form or another were detected in 40 % of the subjects. Anxiety manifests itself both in a general negative emotional state and in the presence of certain fears. The most prominent are the fear of loneliness and the fear of punishment from parents. In anxious children, inflated self-esteem is less common than in children who are not prone to anxiety. In children with a normal level of anxiety, their own assessment of themselves is higher than the assessments of others (mother and teacher). In anxious children, the situation is reversed, they tend to evaluate themselves lower than the surrounding adults. One of the hypotheses of such results of the study is that the increased level of anxiety and fears in children of older preschool age may be the result of a strict and critical attitude towards them from their parents. In general, the study is intended to prove the fact that the structure of self-esteem in anxious children is characterized by inadequate perceptions of themselves and their achievements (the cognitive component of self-esteem) and low self-satisfaction.