precious snowflake syndrome

[BlaqueKatt]

article here

this is actually a pretty well written article for once-

But some of the stuff in it did scare me-like the mother who's daughter had a teacher that didn't correct her spelling test because "she was spelling the words how you said them" or the university pamphlet telling students that sociology and nursing would cause them to get depressed.

Seriously what good is this actually doing the kids?

[Slytovhand]

Good find, BlaqueKatt!!

I agree with all of what was written, pretty much, but there has to be a balance.

If kids don't learn to feel and to express those feelings, then it is in the end harmful to them as people - repression and suppression are bad, m'kay? And it is that sort of stuff that leads to heading down the bad roads - drugs, alcohol, anti-social behaviours, lawyers () etc etc.

But... that doesn't mean you have to molly-coddle to those feelings all the time. Otherwise, there's no wisdom gained from understanding how things come about - no 'consequences'.

If that uni student had a problem with not knowing where to go, why the hell didn't he ask??? What sort of marks did that student get? Or did he just learn to parrot off what he got, and never bother to actually think about what he was taught?

And what hope for the future if our kids don't learn to see beyond themselves???


/Slyt's soapbox

[Greenday]

Kids these days really are too coddled. I'm all for loving kids and making sure they feel good, but sometimes, failure really is the best teacher. It SUCKS to fail. Why is it ok to fail all of a sudden? What the hell are kids going to do when they get older and all of a sudden they fail and it's not ok? It'll be one hell of a shocker.

[Giggle Goose]

Kids AND parents need to shut the hell up and read "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls if they haven't already.

When you have an alcoholic father, a mentally ill mother, no food, electricity, and indoor plumbing while growing up like the author of this memoir; you come to learn that your feelings aren't important. You just deal. Not all of us have the luxury of parents that give us "certificates" for sitting on the carpet nicely or whatever that crap was.

Sorry. I'll walk away because it's too hard for me to be objective here.

[tropicsgoddess]

Kids these days are too spoiled and too coddled. It's okay to give praise when due here and there, but not for EVERY thing! Kids should be/do good and not expect to automatically be rewarded for it, be self-sufficient and learn to deal with failure. All the coddling and spoiling the parents do to the kids may seem harmless to them at first, but it will bite them and their kids in the ass later in the road in the years to come.

[protege]

All the coddling and spoiling the parents do to the kids may seem harmless to them at first, but it will bite them and their kids in the ass later in the road in the years to come.

Pardon my French, but parents like that...are turning our country into a bunch of fucking pussies, and then can't understand when their kids *do* fail, it's nobody's fault but their own, so quit fucking crying.

Right now, my parents are going through this crap with my brothers. Both are constantly coddled. Because of that, there's no incentive to work hard, or even work at all in the case of my youngest brother. He's 26 years old, didn't do well in college, and currently works part-time at the gym. Outside of that, he really has no desire to do any better.

My other brother (who is 29, BTW) is pretty much the same. He dropped out of his college's military program supposedly because of the hazing. Turns out that he simply couldn't handle the physical activity--he'd never had to do that before--everything was pretty much given to him. After he finally graduated from another school, he had a very good job lined up. Turned that one down simply because his heart murmur meant he'd been confined to a desk. To the company, it didn't matter--they were willing to work with him. Now he's been bounced around from job to job, and currently works part-time for a landscaper.

What annoys the hell out of me, is that my parents are *constantly* bitching about how "nobody helps out around here." (I don't live at home, anymore...so helping there is out of the question...I have my own house to deal with.) The *reason* nobody helps around there? Simple--my parents don't have the *balls* to *make* my brothers do anything. Yet, they feel entitled to bitch about the situation. I don't make excuses for that crap, nor do I tolerate it--if they were my kids, they wouldn't be sitting around at all--I'd put their asses to work. No work? Then out by the curb then.

[DesignFox]

There has to be a balance between discipline and reward.

To me, it seems as if the rewards come way too easily. Seriously, a fucking award for sitting quietly on the carpet? WTF? When I was a kid, that was EXPECTED. Nobody gave you a fucking award for sitting quietly. If you wanted recognition for something, you had to damn well work hard for it! And even then, half the time it went unnoticed! You REALLY had to go above and beyond for people to give a crap.

In school, if you fucked up, it was marked in RED PEN, X-d out, and you were told to do it again- the right way!

That's how we learned. You passed or you FAILED. If you failed, you tried again. And you were damn well ashamed to have failed. There was no molly coddling. There was no phone call from home screaming at the teacher to make you pass. No no no. YOU did the work. YOU did it right. or YOU suffered the consequences.

This foam padding and constant defending of the children is total bullshit. Let them fall on their faces once in awhile- it's the only way they'll learn to pick up their feet to keep from tripping.

My parents help me when I need it, but otherwise let me deal with my problems. When I fell down as a kid, I was told to brush it off. No one came swooping in with candy and band aids... seriously.

[Giggle Goose]

In school, if you fucked up, it was marked in RED PEN, X-d out, and you were told to do it again- the right way!

I heard back when I was an education major that using red ink to correct is discouraged because it "freaked out" kids too much.

I loved teaching and even subbing, but I couldn't do it for a career simply because of crap like that. That and all the NCLB crap, but that's a whole 'nother thread.

[rahmota]

You are very right when you say this country is messed up about the way we handle our kids. Sad thign is that a lot of parents ahve to be scared to try and discipline their kids or otherwise let them fail because one phone call to CPS and they loose their kids or have to go throuhg such a hassle to keep them that it become sjust easier to go along with the program and let their children be nerfed than to fight it.

This country used to not be afraid to let kids play and get hurt or learn that sometimes doing stupid thigns wind up failing or hurting. That not studying means you wind up the drop out pushing a broom at the local factory instead of being able to make somethign of yourself. That each person was responsible for their own actions and that to try and say otherwise was passing the blame onto someone else.

Somehow that got forgotten and twisted. Our society, our government agencies, our schools are all these good little sheeple training grounds. Reinforcing the behavior that someone else will take care of all your problems just be good obedient safe little sheep and do what you are told and dont think or do anything unsafe or controversial and it'll be okay.

bah humbug.

[Slytovhand]

Irony.... kids aren't allowed to trust strangers. How easy would it be for a stranger with ill-intent to come along and bribe that kid into going away with them?

On another side... I sent an email to the floor at work some months ago, getting on my high horse at just how bad the admin forms were being done (for when the system goes down). I put in large RED letters that about 15 or so didn't even have PIN's on them (which is rather essential for accounts... go figure). I heard from my TL that someone had complained to management - because they thought it was a bit offensive! Gah!


Slyt

[rahmota]

I put in large RED letters that about 15 or so didn't even have PIN's on them (which is rather essential for accounts... go figure). I heard from my TL that someone had complained to management - because they thought it was a bit offensive! Gah!

Yeah I can believe that. Part of the problem with the world is right now that too many people are way to sensitive to being offended. Wah not everyone or everything is going to be sunshine and roses. I am not a very social person hang out with me long enough and I'll probably say or do somethign offensive. Same way if I hang out with someone else. Its just the way humnity works. Either you are a sheep that never says or does anything "wrong" or you are an individual or a wolf and everyone of the bland milktoast sheeple gang up on you. feh.

The price of being a sheep is boredom, the price of being a wolf is lonliness. Choose wisely.

[ThePhoneGoddess]

I heard back when I was an education major that using red ink to correct is discouraged because it "freaked out" kids too much.

When I was little, if I brought home anything that had red marks on it I got a beating, a nasty lecture about disappointing my parents, and sent to bed with no dinner. Consequently, if my teacher wrote anything in red ink on my work, I would go ballistic in class, crying hysterically.

Today's different emphasis on children has both good and bad things to it---if a second grader did that today, most schools would investigate it. Back in the seventies when I was a kid, they would just tell my Mother, and I would get another beating for losing control in front of others. Extracurricular activites were a nightmare for me, because if I didn't do really, really well in front of the other parents I was treated like a leper by mine. I was a chronic bedwetter and had constant nightmares as a child, but in my parents mind, that was my fault for not being tough enough for them. They responded by trying even harder to 'toughen me up'.

I think the problem is that we have never taken into account how widely human personalities vary, not now, or in the past. In the past children were given lots of tough love and high expectations, and the ones who were damaged by it were written off as defective. Today, we've swung the opposite way, and we've gotten rid of the tough love in order to help those children with personalities that didn't do well under that kind of treatment. But that has a negative effect as well, as the article illustrates.

The trick is to figure out what kind of child you have and tailor your parenting accordingly. My parents method of parenting allowed my brother and sister to thrive, but it damaged me very badly.

[rahmota]

The trick is to figure out what kind of child you have and tailor your parenting accordingly.

This is true for the most part which is why trying to shove a one size fits all world on people is more harmful than trying to help each child find the path to their own destiny. To let each person rise or fall on their own strengths or merits. Not everyone is goign to be able to be a jock or a brain. Not every kid is going to be able to run across the gym floor without tripping on the lines. The ones that dont shouldnt get an award just for trying hard. It makes kids unable to face the really real world and realize there are shadows and evil and failure waiting for them.

Unfortunately people just decide that instead of changing the attitude about the kids they'll try and change the world to better nerf to protect the kids. protect the kids from what? failure? Better be able to follow them around the rest of their life and change their diaper and hand them an award for being able to go poo without leaking any. failure happens. It happens to the best of people, the most prepared of people. There are glory and riches awaiting in the universe but they arnt for the timid. You have to be able to deal with a few bloody noses before you earn the rewards. And the kids we are having to raise thanks to all the nerfing politically correct no child left behind everyone's a winner we dont want to hurt anyone's feelings BS wont be able to deal with a papercut much less a bloody nose.

People need to get their feeligns hurt. Kids need to fail once in a wahile. I failed quite a bit growing up in various things. my parents didnt react quite as badly as TPG's but seeing their disappointment was more than enough for me to struggle and try harder the next time to do better because I wanted to earn my reward. And you dont reward someone for doing what is expected of them. You dont reward someone for doing their job. You reward someone who goes above and beyond what is expected of them. You reward someone who rises above true adversity or true problems and you sure dont give out awards for carpet sitting.

feh.

[ThePhoneGoddess]

you dont reward someone for doing what is expected of them.

This is exactly the attitude my parents had, and this is exactly why I have never been motivated to do anything they expected of me. No matter how hard I worked at anything they expected of me, I was never given any kind of encouragement or reward for it. I learned very early that it was simply easier on my mental health to constantly disappoint them than it was to work and sweat insanely over something and then just have them shrug their shoulders and say 'It's about time' and then turn away and never mention it again.

Some children thrive on encouragement, especially if they are having trouble with something and have worked very hard on it. I didn't learn to tie my shoelaces until I was in third grade. I am very uncoordinated and I couldn't figure it out. On the other hand, I taught myself to read when I was 4 with very little help from anyone, so I was obviously not stupid. But it drove my parents nuts that I couldn't figure it out, and when I finally did, my Mother's only response was 'Jesus Christ, it's about time!' And it was never mentioned again. They simply moved on to something else I wasn't good at and harped on that.

If I had been given the smallest amount of encouragement as a child I probably wouldn't have grown up to have as many problems as I did. On the other hand, if my brother had been given all the over-encouragement that goes on sometimes today, it would have driven him nuts and he would have looked at the adults like they were crazy.

[Norton]

No matter how hard I worked at anything they expected of me, I was never given any kind of encouragement or reward for it.

It seems to me that your parents may have had abnormally high expectations of you. Learning to tie your shoes is a struggle and deserving of least some praise. Sitting quietly on a carpet is is a reasonable expectation of a 5 year-old - a certificate of recognition goes a bit overboard, I think.

Of course kids need rewards and praise as motivators, but not for every little thing they manage to do right. Sometimes a simple "Good job" will suffice, sometimes candy is appropriate, or extra priveleges. There has to be a line though, or else kids will come to expect a reward every time they do something right. It may work for the first decade or so, but there will come a time when they realize that they suddenly have to work hard in order to get rewards, and they will be unable to handle it.