Читать книгу Dr Eve's Sex Book: A Guide for Young People - Marlene Wasserman - Страница 13

The school you go to could give you a certain status. High status helps build self-esteem, but not everyone can go to a high-status school. Building school bricks means embracing loyalty, commitment and respect towards your school. This is how you take responsibility for developing your own self-esteem. School is the place where you learn so much about yourself as you encounter different people. It is the playground of competitiveness, jealousy, realising your potential, strengths and weaknesses. Pressure to perform is immense. You will be put into a box: geek, slut, druggie, freak, goth, punk, poser, nerd, jock and more.

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If you attend a coeducational school, it becomes the place of awareness of sexuality. The “locker room syndrome” is born, the place where boys compare their penises and girls their breasts and bodies. Self-esteem is developed or squashed in this high-pressurised environment.

Popularity is all-important. Being liked and admired by all, including teachers, is what everyone wants. Cliques are formed, labels given to you, judgements are made which can make or break your self-esteem. Popularity can become skewed and is often determined by your looks, money, family and personal status, rather than by who you are as a person. Changing schools can mean not ever fitting in, constantly feeling on the fringes of the circle, never establishing lifelong solid friendships.

If you are not popular, you may not be invited to and included in social events out of school hours. Weekends begin to feel as lonely and depressing as going to school. This means that going to school can often be a tortuous, lonely experience.

If you are one of the unfortunate kids who get bullied, picked on and mocked for no real reason, your school life can be hell. You may even be one of many children who are sexually abused by a teacher. If that is the case, tell someone who will believe you. Phone Childline.

As in the case of friends and family, healthy school bricks either build or break your self-esteem. It is really hard to like yourself when it feels as if no one else likes you. Escaping into your room at home or the school library during break is a temporary measure of relief. Joining the drug and alcohol clique, or the rebel clique who gets into trouble for stealing cars and housebreaking, or a gang, will not enhance your self-esteem. Oh sure, it will give you the instant acceptance you crave – but the consequences are horrendous. I know you probably can’t hear me on this, as the aloneness, rejection and pain of being an outsider feels too severe for you to manage. This is especially true if you do not have solid family bricks to support you.

Becoming successful at something seems to work. People notice you, give you the recognition you crave. And I don’t mean being the girl who gives the best blowjob or the guy who can get the best dope in town!

Find something constructive, something that makes you feel good about yourself. Build bricks while you are at school – be curious about life, watch the progress of people you aspire to be, find a role model and observe him/her, explore yourself and dream a lot.