Self-esteem is a child’s passport to mental health and happiness throughout her life. You can’t buy or even give it to your child – it has to come naturally from the experiences they have.
These days there’s great awareness of the importance of building self-esteem and helping to make kids ‘bully-proof’. We probably all know many ways to do that:
- have a genuine interest in them
- give them responsibilities
- spend quality time with them
- celebrate their endeavours
- tell them what you love about them
- keep your promises
- be a good role model
- give honest praise only when it’s due
- praise them for who they are, not just how they perform…
A physie teacher’s story…
At a time when life was crazy and I felt devastated, an offer to teach Physie came my way. What a blessing it has proven to be for my life! I always knew that Physie was an amazing sport for developing physically strong girls but it wasn’t until I came back to teaching that I discovered… the OTHER side of Physie.
I discovered an amazing group of women who were ready not only to give everything they had,
“The happiest people don’t have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything.”
Possibly the biggest interclub in history went off without a hitch on Saturday at Sunnybank in QLD. There were 556 competitors in one day, almost as many as Junior Nationals! The vibe was electric and everyone was happy and supportive. The highlight for the organisers was seeing so many ladies competing – in fact 98 ladies in total! 51 of these were in the Novice and Intermediate sections, confirming the buzz that younger ladies seem to coming back to physie in droves.
“This was heaps more ladies than you’d usually see at an interclub” said the organiser. “I think a big part of the reason is that the Novice and Intermediate now have 5 years before they have to go to Open Ladies instead of just 3. Those two extra years make a big difference and, instead of giving up physie, our Intermediate ladies have stayed, which is just great. We’ve also got Novice ladies joining because they’ve tried other things like zumba and aerobics and they just like the physie better. Some of them have done physie as a kid and, when they come back, they remember why they liked it, especially the teams aspect and the fact that it’s for women only.”
Q: How old is Tillie?
A: 3
Q: How long has she been doing physie?
A: She started when she was 2. She calls it ‘bysie’ and she calls her leotard a ‘weotard’.
Q: How often does she do physie?
A: She does 3 classes a week but it’s her choice. She does the preschoolers class and two 5-6 year classes. You could say she’s slightly obsessed but in a good way!
Q: What makes you say she’s obsessed?
A: She sleeps in her leotard and she plays the physie music all day. She asks every day if it’s physie day and when we have to leave class she cries.
Q: Does she like her teacher?
A: Yes, she makes me video her doing physie
