d as one's sense of self. In young children, this sense of self is often based on fleeting, sometimes inaccurate perceptions; however, by the time children have reached school age, their self-concept has become quite a bit more stable and has begun to include various physical and/or character traits and attributes, such as "smart" or "pretty" (Clarke-Stewart, Friedman & Koch, 1996).
Papalia and Olds (1995) further report that the content of children's sense of self or self-concept consists of their knowledge of what they have been or done, with the function of the self-concept being to guide their decisions and actions. In other words, the general self-concept helps children to understand themselves and to regulate their behavior. Regarding self-esteem, the authors state that this refers to children's evaluation of themselves, as characterized in their self-concept; the degree of positiveness associated with this evaluation of the self-concept is said to be the child's degree of self-esteem.
According to Clarke-Stewart, Friedman and Koch (1996), middle childhood, the years between six and twelve, are a particularly important period in the development of a child's sense of self. It is a period during which children compare their perceived self to what they believe to be the ideal self and judge themselves by how well they measure up to the social standards and expectations they have internalized with respect to their self-concept. This fact makes the self-concept in general and self-esteem in particular an extremely important area for counseling and guidance intervention during their elementary school years.
Moreover, self-esteem has been found to be related to both academic performance and disruptive behavior in elementary school (Ziegler, Scott & Taylor, 1991). Thus, guidance intervention aimed at improving a child's self-esteem can have effects not only on the child's psychosocial growth but also on his or her schoo...