I have spent a good part of my social work career working with children in a variety of settings. When I started work as a Children’s Support Worker at a women’s refuge, I would spend a lot of time reading to the children who were staying in the shelter. Generally the kids were aged from 0 to 10 years. Sometimes we got older kids but not too often. It was during my time at the shelter that I started collecting children’s books relating to self acceptance and self esteem. After that job, I moved to a primary school setting (elementary school for you in the US) where I was working with children aged 4 – 12 years in a more counselling oriented modality. I continued to collect relevant books (most kids love having someone read to them, even when they are almost teenagers) and now I have quite a collection of these sorts of books and I still grab relevant titles when I come across them.

This week I bought a young children’s picture book from a bookseller through my daughter’s daycare centre. It is called I Like Myself and it is written by Karen Beaumont and illustrated by David Catrow. While the illustrations don’t particularly appeal to me, I thought the prose was worth sharing. It goes like this…

I like myself!

I’m glad I’m me.

There’s no-one else I’d rather be.

I like my eyes, my ears, my nose.

I like my fingers and my toes.

I like me wild.

I like me tame.

I like me different

and the same.

I like me fast.

I like me slow.

I like me everywhere I go.

I like me on the inside too,

for all I think and say and do.

Inside, outside, upside down,

from head to toe and all around.

I like it all! It all is me!

And me is all I want to be.

And I don’t care in any way

what someone else may think or say.

I may be called a silly nut

or crazy cuckoo bird – so what?

I’m having too much fun you see,

for anything to bother me!

Even when I look a mess,

I still don’t like me any less,

’cause nothing  in this world, you know,

can change what’s deep inside, and so…

No matter if they stop and stare,

no person

ever

anywhere

can make me feel that what they see

is all there really is to me.

I’d still like me with fleas or warts,

or with a silly snout that snorts,

or knobbly knees  or hippo hips

or purple polka dotted lips,

or beaver breath or stinky toes

or horns protruding from my nose,

or -yikes- with spikes all down my spine,

or hair that’s like a porcupine.

I still would be the same you see…

I like myself because I’m ME!