Wednesday, June 15, 2011

"If A Therapist Is Telling You To Pay LESS Attention To Your Kids' Feelings, You Know Something Has Gotten WAY Out Of Whack."

Great article in The Atlantic Monthly's July/August edition. From the blog title today, you know it's about parenting, and the article's title is "How To Land Your Kid in Therapy."

Yes.

In the last 4 days I've publicly admitted that I subscribe to The New York Times and The Atlantic Monthly. #TrueConfessions.

Anyway, parents, read the article...Seems now that common sense is cutting edge, doesn't it.

...and here are a few quotes to whet the appetite:
"Wendy Mogel says that colleges have had so much trouble getting parents off campus after freshman orientation that school administrators have had to come up with strategies to boot them. At the University of Chicago, she said, they’ve now added a second bagpipe processional at the end of opening ceremonies—the first is to lead the students to another event, the second to usher the parents away from their kids. The University of Vermont has hired “parent bouncers,” whose job is to keep hovering parents at bay. She said that many schools are appointing an unofficial “dean of parents” just to wrangle the grown-ups. Despite the spate of articles in recent years exploring why so many people in their 20s seem reluctant to grow up, the problem may be less that kids are refusing to separate and individuate than that their parents are resisting doing so."

“We want our kids to be happy living the life we envision for them—the banker who’s happy, the surgeon who’s happy,” Barry Schwartz, the Swarthmore social scientist, told me, even though those professions “might not actually make them happy.” At least for parents of a certain demographic (and if you’re reading this article, you’re likely among them), “we’re not so happy if our kids work at Walmart but show up each day with a smile on their faces,” Schwartz says. “They’re happy, but we’re not. Even though we say what we want most for our kids is their happiness, and we’ll do everything we can to help them achieve that, it’s unclear where parental happiness ends and our children’s happiness begins.”

"In early adulthood, this becomes a big problem. “People who feel like they’re unusually special end up alienating those around them,” Twenge says. “They don’t know how to work on teams as well or deal with limits. They get into the workplace and expect to be stimulated all the time, because their worlds were so structured with activities. They don’t like being told by a boss that their work might need improvement, and they feel insecure if they don’t get a constant stream of praise. They grew up in a culture where everyone gets a trophy just for participating, which is ludicrous and makes no sense when you apply it to actual sports games or work performance. Who would watch an NBA game with no winners or losers? Should everyone get paid the same amount, or get promoted, when some people have superior performance? They grew up in a bubble, so they get out into the real world and they start to feel lost and helpless. Kids who always have problems solved for them believe that they don’t know how to solve problems. And they’re right—they don’t.”

"The message we send kids with all the choices we give them is that they are entitled to a perfect life—that, as Dan Kindlon, the psychologist from Harvard, puts it, “if they ever feel a twinge of non-euphoria, there should be another option.” Mogel puts it even more bluntly: what parents are creating with all this choice are anxious and entitled kids whom she describes as “handicapped royalty.”

Well, that should get you going today (and yes, tomorrow I'll finish the discussion of the book we began last week). Have at it, patrons!

4 Comments:

Anonymous kris said...

omgosh!!...this describes practically every student I teach and it makes me sad.
I kinda make it my personal mission to give these kids at least a small dose of reality. I'm all for praise, but let me tell ya it's gotten out of hand. If EVERYTHING is special then NOTHING is special.
It's tough for teachers who have to measure performance based on a standard or model. First of all, you have the kids who can't even fathom that there is actually a standard that needs to be achieved in order to get the praise. Secondly, you have the parents who rush to defend their child's mediocre performance (or lack there of) and as a result, many times end up blaming the teacher because we're "too hard" or "mean".
I think the big question is "why are the parents of this generation doing this???" where does it come from? do they really think this is helping their kids?
But, my business is the kids and I'm gonna sound like my grandmother here and say, "I worry about the kids these days!"

8:18 AM  
Blogger Brandon and Jenny said...

We caught an episode of "The Middle" where each member of the Cross Country team got a meaningless trophy. Very. Funny.

For those not outside the US, it's similar here in Guatemala, particularly with boys. Some raise little kings who always get their way and grow up into men who don't and then get angry about it.

"foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child and discipline will remove it far from him" sounds like abuse to so many. I think it's more abusive not to discipline kids, but no body asks me ;)

They still give grades in school, right? I mean, you have to get 90% of the material to get an A?

10:17 AM  
Anonymous Katy Fisher said...

I definitely second the article and the first commentor! I have so many students who are shocked, upset, and completely have no understanding of being told their ('b.s.'--as they even admit that it is) is handed back witha failing grade an they are made to redo it! On one hand I blame the schools for so lowering their expectations, that students believe their lack of effort should be rewarded. On the other hand it is the parents who don't mind that their baby does poor work or even that they actually learned very little as long as their child is happy and meets their minimum requirements. How are we going to raise strong achievers, much less compete with the world if our kids don't understand hard work...only that they feel happy and praised all the time!

11:05 AM  
Blogger Schweers' Mom said...

One of the things parents can do in the summer is allow their children to figure out for themselves what to do. I used to tell mine, "I'm not the cruise director. Figure it out." Amazing what they will figure out instead of being assigned chores (which they also got,too). I'm not a bad parent for not entertaining my 10 year old every second of the day. My mother certainly did not entertain me all day.

I'm shocked how many parents actually fill out college applications for their teens. Really??? I am happy to proof-read or make suggestions, but I will not be doing that task.

And I am so sick and tired of the AP or Pre-AP class discussion that I hear so frequently. Once again, let your teen have a voice in what they are interested in. I doubt my mom had a clue what classes I took in HS and college. Most of it is for the purpose of playing games with the system to get higher GPAs (or over-inflated GPAs).

I had a parent once tell me her son had just "squeaked by" in a class. I thought she meant that he had barely made a passing grade. Oh no...she meant he had barely made an A! I feel sorry for the girl who marries a guy who has a mom like that. She'll be just as micromanaged.

2:54 PM  

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