"The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude of mind"
William James.

When we were born we were so surprised that most of us did not speak for almost a year and a half.However, those who took care of us had plenty to say. parent's, family, friends, neighbours, teachers and many others colored our worlds and our self image with words of warning such as 'dont, stop, you cant' and also words of disapproval such as 'shame on you', your stupid','bad boy',bad girl',following any mistake or mishap. All this was done for our own good.

It has been well documented that the ratio of one hundred remarks to five positive would be a fairly accurate figure to describe our earlier programming. 'Good girl',' good boy' were even considered positive comments, innocent sounding statements, but they carried damaging long term effects on children. Why, you may ask? because they immediately welded our self worth to our deeds, instead of keeping them worls apart.

It is through these verbal lens that generations of children grew up viewing their dwindling self esteem, as each mishap or mistake was made by them. how could they win? They developed egos that fought daily with their self esteem. This in turn resulted in children and young over-reacting to directions, discipline, or criticism of any kind, because each time they mistakenly believed their self image was being questioned istead of their behaviour.

This is exactly where R.A.G.S. can be turned
into RICHES. 
The following is an example of how the system
of relating works (for all ages, I may add).
R stands for recognition of any or all efforts 
A stands for appreciation of same. 
G stands for gratitude, which depends 
on appreciation for its source.
S stands for self esteem, the result 
of putting the above in operation.

EXAMPLE: A student usually hands in essays
that are not long enough. He/she is accustomed
to hearing 'is that the best you can do?
How do you expect to pass, let alone get an 
honour, with that kind of work?' Just pause for 
a moment and ask yourself what motivation a
student can find in those remarks, how will they
encourage him/her to improve. 
He/she feels you expect him/her to do badly,
ignoring any effort made. This attitude is a 
lose/lose one. Student learns nothing from 
criticism and teacher gains nothing, except
the dubious satisfaction of humiliating a
young person.

R.A.G.S. on the other hand, handles the
situation differently.In this example we find
that the teacher has recognised the student's 
shortcoming, namely not writing a long enough 
essay. Next, the teacher appreciates the effort
by acknowledging specific areas i.e. strong 
opening. Teacher then expresses gratitude for
students use of imagination, and effort, and ends
with gentle constructive guidance and 
encouragement.

EXAMPLE: Same scenario as above, but this time teacher holds up student's work. Smiling, teacher looks at student and says "John/Mary 
I recognise the effort You have put into this essay and I appreciate it. I have read your work with great interest and I am very impressed with both the strong opening, which immediately caught my attention and also your choice of words to describe the event. I am grateful you 
used such imagination and also your ability to point events so well with words. I found your description of the area excellent, especially the valley, where you stated 'it witnessed the history of three generations'. This is the type of strength 
that will earn you the honour you deserve and I look forward to seeing more of the same. My one concern would be that if you end the essay too quickly, the whole story could suffer and that would be a pity. May I suggest therefore, that you bring the some strength to the ending as you did to the beginning, which will make a great piece of writing, even greater.

 Thank you JohnIMary - well done.'

Ask yourself as a student, which type of example would you 
wish to receive on a daily basis in front of your classmates. 
Ask yourself how would that approach make YOU feel 
towards yourself and your work. In all honesty, do you 
believe the next essay submitted will be better, as student 
feels the seeds of pride in work emerge. This is a win/win 
situation. On the surface it appears that more time is 
consumed giving a constructive evaluation of work, as 
compared to some sharp put-down, but in time the results will 
produce a self motivated student, and class morale will soar. 
Speaking to adults and even elderly people about their school 
experiences, they repeatedly confirm that as bad as physical 
punishment was in school, verbal punishment left lifetime 
scars. Burning with humiliation, in front of a class, when a 
teacher remarks 'How can you be so stupid. Do you still not 
understand? Surely you should know it by now. 'Your sister 
always got an A'.

These type of scars have left many many wonderful, sensitive 
people unable to develop their talents and potential. They 
have wound up phobic about failing in any area of their lives 
- whether its a job change, a promotion, relocation etc Many 
just pick a rut and live their lives in quiet desperation.
Parents unwittingly buy into the idea that if they goad the 
child enough, he/she will produce good results. Comparisons 
between children is a method used, which breeds anger and 
resentment. For example a parent may say 'There's Mary 
after getting 95% in her test again and you wind up with just 
60%. If you won't put the effort in, you can't expect good 
results. If your tests do not improve, you will only be allowed 
out one night a week, do you understand?' What the parent 
may not understand is that each child is unique: languages
may come easily to one child, maths to another. Levels of
retention are different, boys and girls levels of maturity vary. 
There are so many factors at work with each child, one just 
cannot and should not compare.Parents must RECOGNISE
these differences, APPRECIATE the problems they present,
show GRATITUDE for the effort put in and not base gratitude 
on results. Each child should compete ONLY with him\herself 
and not any OTHER student or family member. With these 
attitudes the child's self esteem will increase and he/she 
will take pride in his/her own work and reach a far higher 
level of achievement, than criticism will produce.

Ambrose Pearch has said 'When Eve saw her reflection in
the pool, she called Adam and accused him of infidelity'. 
We too in life fail to recognise ourselves and chose to
follow society's image of us. When we allow thieves 
into the camp of our own self image and self esteem, 
we too are guilty of infidelity to our own worth. When we
accept put-downs, and criticisms received, internalise and
personalise them, we have become thieves in our own camp.

There is no duty we under rate so much as the duty to be 
happy. So many wonderful people I have met during my life, 
have only 'wormed themselves at the fires of others, but never 
lit their own'. Their level of happiness depends solely on 
others praise for them. They have never learned to give 
themselves recognition, appreciation, gratitude and their self 
esteem suffered as a result.

Where and when can our true self image emerge confidently? 
When and only when we consciously stop, once and for all, 
allowing these daily hammer blows to pound the child within 
us to pieces. It is called 'inner child abuse' and it usually starts 
almost from birth by those taking "care' of us. Eventually we 
ourselves continue where others have left off.Social conditioning
has not and cannot get it right, so we need to ask ourselves 
when will we STOP allowing it to be our judge and jury.  

We, could start by RECOGNISING that we get our future 
attitudes from the messages we give ourselves TODAY. We 
have to remember we are not mass produced, but unique 
individuals, who foolishly spend most of our lives 'trying to 
be like others'. Surely it is staggering to deeply contemplate
the fact that out of the entire population created from the
beginning of time, there was never another me and never will be.
We should celebrate our differences, not hide or apologise
for them.'Reality is the hypnosis of social conditioning' 
Deepak Chopra warns. Lower self esteem forces us to listen
to society's roar: 'conform'. 'don't rock the boat by marching
to your own drum, listen instead to ours, and spend your life
'out of step'. We don't know who you are, but we feel we can
tell you who to be, what to wear, how to feel, act, relate.
"The self destructive image of perfection has lured so many 
good people into a lifestyle of misery. No matter what they 
do, it is never "good enough'- they are forever unhappy with 
best efforts, always caught up in results only. Television and 
magazines saturate society with an endless search for 
"perfection' that leaves in its wake a nation of people who 
don't know what they want, but are prepared to go to hell and 
back to get it. We could be so much more contented by 
appreciation of our best efforts, instead of rejecting them 
searching for perfection. This goes for jobs, home and 
relationships.

It has been said that the greatest form of art is to improve the 
quality of one's day or that of another. I cannot honestly 
imagine a better way of doing this than to incorporate 

R.A.G.S. into each hour of each day in some small way. 
When we have tired repeating whatfails, why feel threatened
to try what succeeds. If our generation will not take the
time and effort to do so, why believe the next generation
will be any different.Gandhi warned: 'There is more to life
than increasing its pace. ' You and I can make a difference 
and using R.A.G.S. will bring us the riches that are long 
overdue in this world.

Anne O'Brien is chairperson of the Parent's Council
at CBS Callan, Co.Kilkenny