Penny Grossman cringes each time a student mentions a birthday party during class at her Boston, Massachusetts-area preschool. The rule there, and at a growing number of America's schools, is that parties and play-dates shouldn't be discussed unless every child in the room is invited.
Gone are the days when a kindergartner dropped a handful of party invites in the classroom cubbyholes of their closest buddies. Today, if anyone is excluded the invitations can't be handed out at school.
The idea that protecting kids from rejection is crucial to safeguarding their self-esteem has gained momentum in recent years....
Puhlease! Will someone tell the leftists that rule our schools to buy a clue! This isn't the only misguided method employed by these people for "safeguarding" the "self-esteem" of our nation's youth. Do I really have to spell it out for them? What are these cocooned children raised in a world of make believe going to do when they graduate & venture out into the real world? There will be no more rules & alternate realities for "safeguarding" their "self-esteem" from the cold harsh reality of the real world.
Take Valentine's Day: At some schools, a second-grader can't offer paper valentines or heart-shaped candies to a short list of pals and secret crushes anymore. They give cards to everyone or no one at all.
Or sports: In many towns, scorekeeping no longer happens at soccer or softball games played by kids under 8 or 9. Win or lose, every player in the league gets a trophy at the season's end.
These children will grow into young adults without having learned how to deal with disappointment, rejection, schoolyard bullies, competition, etc. What makes these elitist decision makers think that these children will be remotely prepared to deal with the same issues as adults when they have never had to deal with it their entire lives?
At least they quote someone with half a clue, but she blames the parents, or that is how the Associated Pravda journalist spins it. Note how the expert's POV is in "quotes" & the rporter's POV isn't;
"Self-esteem comes from those feelings you have about yourself for a job well done, for when you have achieved something," says Dr. Georgette Constantinou, administrative director of pediatric psychiatry at Akron Children's Hospital in Ohio. "It's not something you pour into your children."
She feels that many parents aren't equipping their kids to manage basic challenges.
"How do you expect them to handle life's big bumps if they haven't experienced the little ones?" she asks.
The AP reporter goes on to directly blame parents rather than elitist schools officials & those leftist activists who force their PC world views on almost every organization where children gather. They are the people impose these insidious rules in our schools & elsewhere whether or not parents agree with them. Instead we are told by this reporter it's all the parents fault;
No one disagrees that disappointment is real: There are contests we all lose, parties we're excluded from. But what motivates so many parents to postpone that reality until their children reach the age of 10 or beyond?
For one thing, kids' lives are so tightly scheduled today that we're enrolling smaller and smaller children in organized activities. It may be true that 6-year-olds aren't ready to handle losing a T-Ball championship; a generation ago, 6-year-olds wouldn't have even been playing team sports.
Parents may also be reacting to their own economic and career stress by trying to protect their kids from it.
In what alternate universe did this occur? There may be more organized activities today, but there were plenty around more than 2 generations ago too.
Little league has been available for children under age 10 as long as I can remember. Back then you had to have some minimum level of competence or you didn't play. And if you made a team, you had to face stiff competition. And your own teammates would get on your case if you screwed up & cost your team the game.
What about the Boy Scouts & Girl Scouts? Didn't their policies force little children to earn their badges based on personal performance? They didn't hand out badges to every kid even if they failed to accomplish all of the required steps to earn them.
In my town, there were Jr Bowling Leagues with real competition. There were league championships with real trophies. And there were trophies for the best bowlers. Losers got to go to the luncheon where the winners received the trophies.
It's the policies that have changed & these changes have not been imposed by all parents or even most of them. It's elitist & activist leftists who have forced these changes for the most part. Most parents have little or no say in these decisions. Instead, this reporter is blaming the parents for all of this. He/she even sneaks in a quote from the expert that makes it appear the expert agrees with the spin the AP reporter took in the next paragraph;
"This group is balancing things that previous generations haven't had to balance," says Constantinou. "The number of women in the work force is phenomenal, probably the largest since the war years, so you have a lot more stressed parents."
Note how the expert's comments don't exactly jive with the AP reporters comments I just quoted above. Again, if you simply read the "quotes" from the Constantinou, they don't say anything that directly supports the AP reporters claims that parents are directly to blame. The expert is talking about the harm that ensues when children are protected from facing reality from any source. This last quote from Constantinou seems to be more about working parents being forced to rely on schools & organized after school programs to have their children under their care more than in the past.
Ah, but Associated Pravda wouldn't intentionally mislead you, now would they? Well, here at the tail end of this article, the AP reporter lets a little contrary evidence seep in;
Busy parents turn to schools and other care-givers for help, says Mike Sanchez, co-owner of Camp Innovation, a Houston, Texas-area day camp. It does offer competitive games, but also gives each camper an award each week.
"I tell counselors, always find something specific about the kids," Sanchez says. "It helps with parents who say they may not be cleaning at home or working well with a brother or sister. We work on it, and then give them an award for best spirit of the week, best cleaner of the week."
Those are his rules & methodologies, not something the parents insisted upon.
There isn't a single quote in this article from a parent who insists on "safeguarding" the "self-esteem" of their children. These "busy" parents actually actually want their children to face reality & become more responsible. If anything, once you get past the reporters dishonest spin, this article shows that working parents are at the mercy of our schools & programs where their children spend so much of their time.
Buried at the bottom we find quotes from "critics" of these insidious policies;
Critics of the trend worry about a generation of kids who haven't experienced rejection or failure -- especially compared with countries such as China and Japan, where a focus on competition defines the lives of many children.
Learning to compete, says Nichols, is vital. "It sets them up for real life things like a job," she says. "It helps people develop their skills."
Perish the thought! Why would anyone want our nations youth prepared "for real life things like a job" & "develop their skills" so they can successfully compete in the real world? Apparently this journalist doesn't. And he/she is obviously not alone.
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