Self esteem is defined as the a feeling of satisfaction that someone has in himself or herself and his or her own abilities.

 Self-esteem has become a household word. People (Teachers, parents,therapists, and others) have started focusing efforts on boosting self-esteem, not understanding the heterogeneity of the concept.

Self esteem is a two edged knife, there is very fine line between holding a high self esteem and being a narcissist. People with a healthy self esteem can be assertive but are cautious about alienation. Narcissists are charming at first but tend to alienate others eventually.  Low self-esteem may contribute to externalizing behavior and delinquency, however High self-esteem does not prevent children from smoking, drinking, taking drugs, or engaging in early sex.

Like all beautiful things in life,  self esteem needs to fall in a healthy range. Too much of it may be as bad as too little. This becomes especially important for parents and teachers, as indiscriminate praise might just as easily promote narcissism, with its less desirable  consequences and indiscriminate punishment can easily lead to a low self esteem.

Take the online self esteem test.

Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE)
Author: Morris Rosenberg
The purpose of the 10 item RSE scale is to measure self-esteem. Originally the measure was designed to measure the self-esteem of high school students. However, since its
development, the scale has been used with a variety of groups including adults, with norms available for many of those groups.