Excessive Praise sets kids up for failure
It really is all about you, and you alone! You are sooooo special! You're beautiful, brilliant and glamorous, and you deserve every advantage and privilege! Look up "perfect" in the dictionary, and you'll find a picture of YOU there!
That's the message with which all too many of today's kids have been programmed, say the employers, marriage counselors and law-enforcement authorities who now have to deal with them. Reporter Jeffrey Zaslow, writing in the April 20 Wall Street Journal, explained:
"Childhood in recent decades has been defined by such stroking - by parents who see their job as building self-esteem, by soccer coaches who give every player a trophy, by schools that used to name one 'student of the month' and these days name 40.
"Now, as this greatest generation grows up, the culture of praise is reaching deeply into the adult world. Bosses, professors and mates are feeling the need to lavish praise on young adults, particularly twentysomethings, or else see them wither under an unfamiliar compliment deficit …
"Certainly, there are benefits to building confidence and showing attention. But some researchers suggest that inappropriate kudos are turning too many adults into narcissistic praise-junkies." Kids who receive too much praise turn into adults fixated on me, me, me, according to San Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge.
Such "grownups," if you'll excuse the term, often aren't good at even acknowledging others or working as a team, let alone sharing credit or glory. They demand constant attention and expect a brass band to play just because they showed up.
That unfortunate assumption of entitlement creates some real challenges at work - at, say, being told what to do by a boss - and in interpersonal relationships like, say, marriage. Twenge points to research that suggests today's young adults are more self-centered than previous generations. A group of 16,475 college students who took a standardized personality inventory, responding to such statements as "I think I am a special person," were judged to be 30% more narcissistic than students who took the test when it was first administered in 1982.
"There's a runaway inflation of everyday speech," warns psychologist Linda Sapadin. These days it's not enough for a girl to be pretty; she has to be "drop-dead gorgeous." And being called "smart" is an insult; nothing less than "genius" will do." Whatever happened to achieving praise the old-fashioned way: by working hard and consistently over time for it; by producing worthwhile products or outcomes for one's employer, community or nation; by setting new records in one's industry, sport or service; by practicing to develop truly remarkable talents or skills; by going above and beyond the ordinary in one's attitudes, habits and accomplishments?
Certainly we're not suggesting that child rearing revert to a cruel word and a slap upside the head, the way it may have been generations ago, or that standards be set so high that discouragement and defeatism afflict our kids. America rose to greatness, after all, thanks in no little part to a unique can-do attitude.
If you really can do something, after all, you have a right to say you can do it. If you've really accomplished something worthwhile - like the young people the Valley Press features in its annual Future Leaders editions, or like the fine folks you'll read about in our upcoming Hometown Heroes section - you deserve encouragement to do even more.
But how about a little realism to go with our aspirations to greatness? For example, lots of workers rightly figure that recognition at work is called a paycheck, without the balloons and bells some others seem to expect. The world is getting ever more competitive and unforgiving. Our kids need to know that they need to achieve praiseworthy goals to earn praise, that credit ultimately goes pretty much where it is shown to be due.
To be considered good, all of us have to focus on delivering the goods.
Source: Antelope Valley Press, April 24, 2007