Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Seagoon on September 07, 2006, 11:07:38 AM
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A counselor friend recently sent me a copy of interesting and unexpected article from Psychology Today entitled "A Nation of Wimps" about the trend towards producing overprivileged, overprotected kids who essentially grow up utterly useless.
The article is very interesting, but as one commentator on the article noted: "Setting aside the irony that the therapy culture (represented by Psychology Today) had a hand in developing said nation..." and it may be too little, too late for the therapeutic community to start complaining now about the results of their own long social re-engineering project.
Anyway, here is a link to the article: A Nation of Wimps (http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20041112-000010.html)
I've reproduced the first of eight pages below:
A Nation of Wimps
Parents are going to ludicrous lengths to take the bumps out of life for their children. However, parental hyperconcern has the net effect of making kids more fragile; that may be why they're breaking down in record numbers.
By:Hara Estroff Marano
Page 1 of 8
Maybe it's the cyclist in the park, trim under his sleek metallic blue helmet, cruising along the dirt path... at three miles an hour. On his tricycle.
Or perhaps it's today's playground, all-rubber-cushioned surface where kids used to skin their knees. And... wait a minute... those aren't little kids playing. Their mommies—and especially their daddies—are in there with them, coplaying or play-by-play coaching. Few take it half-easy on the perimeter benches, as parents used to do, letting the kids figure things out for themselves.
Then there are the sanitizing gels, with which over a third of parents now send their kids to school, according to a recent survey. Presumably, parents now worry that school bathrooms are not good enough for their children.
Consider the teacher new to an upscale suburban town. Shuffling through the sheaf of reports certifying the educational "accommodations" he was required to make for many of his history students, he was struck by the exhaustive, well-written—and obviously costly—one on behalf of a girl who was already proving among the most competent of his ninth-graders. "She's somewhat neurotic," he confides, "but she is bright, organized and conscientious—the type who'd get to school to turn in a paper on time, even if she were dying of stomach flu." He finally found the disability he was to make allowances for: difficulty with Gestalt thinking. The 13-year-old "couldn't see the big picture." That cleverly devised defect (what 13-year-old can construct the big picture?) would allow her to take all her tests untimed, especially the big one at the end of the rainbow, the college-worthy SAT.
Behold the wholly sanitized childhood, without skinned knees or the occasional C in history. "Kids need to feel badly sometimes," says child psychologist David Elkind, professor at Tufts University. "We learn through experience and we learn through bad experiences. Through failure we learn how to cope."
Messing up, however, even in the playground, is wildly out of style. Although error and experimentation are the true mothers of success, parents are taking pains to remove failure from the equation.
"Life is planned out for us," says Elise Kramer, a Cornell University junior. "But we don't know what to want." As Elkind puts it, "Parents and schools are no longer geared toward child development, they're geared to academic achievement."
No one doubts that there are significant economic forces pushing parents to invest so heavily in their children's outcome from an early age. But taking all the discomfort, disappointment and even the play out of development, especially while increasing pressure for success, turns out to be misguided by just about 180 degrees. With few challenges all their own, kids are unable to forge their creative adaptations to the normal vicissitudes of life. That not only makes them risk-averse, it makes them psychologically fragile, riddled with anxiety. In the process they're robbed of identity, meaning and a sense of accomplishment, to say nothing of a shot at real happiness. Forget, too, about perseverance, not simply a moral virtue but a necessary life skill. These turn out to be the spreading psychic fault lines of 21st-century youth. Whether we want to or not, we're on our way to creating a nation of wimps.
The Fragility Factor
College, it seems, is where the fragility factor is now making its greatest mark. It's where intellectual and developmental tracks converge as the emotional training wheels come off. By all accounts, psychological distress is rampant on college campuses. It takes a variety of forms, including anxiety and depression—which are increasingly regarded as two faces of the same coin—binge drinking and substance abuse, self-mutilation and other forms of disconnection. The mental state of students is now so precarious for so many that, says Steven Hyman, provost of Harvard University and former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, "it is interfering with the core mission of the university." Next Page (http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=pto-20041112-000010&page=2)
- SEAGOON
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How I agree with you!
I'm pretty proud of my kids (although I don't show it too much to them).
The boy is 4.5 years old, his knees and shins are permanently scratched and bruised, he isn't afraid of water, he's already jumped into the swimming pool from the 3m high dive plank, he can ride a bicycle since this summer (although I make him wear a helmet though) and got his first stitches at 2...
The girl is 8, less of a risk-taker than her brother but she rides her bike offroad, swims like an eel and ride poneys since april (with already 3-4 falls...).
I haven't much sympathy for people who are over-protecting their children. In most cases, they are also lacking in the authority department...
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I couldn't agree more.
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If kids had on/off switches do you think we would ever take them out of the closet?
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could not agree more.
We spend the first 15-18 years of our lives trying to get out of the house so that mommy can't tell us what to do "for our own good"
and then we vote for democrats to tell us what to do and tell us it isn't our fault but that they know what is best for us.
It all started when we let women have the right to vote. They put security ahead of freedom every frigging time.
lazs
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that's why my kids succeed they are natural born disruptors, they swim against the tide. they were brought up in the ninties/second millenium but to sixties/seventies paradigms, without helmets, pads, safety devices or too much concern for things I see other parents fret over. they have also inhereted their parents aggressive tendencies. I'm unleashing carefully groomed great whites into the seal pen. :D
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Hi deSelys,
Originally posted by deSelys
How I agree with you!
I'm pretty proud of my kids (although I don't show it too much to them).
The boy is 4.5 years old, his knees and shins are permanently scratched and bruised, he isn't afraid of water, he's already jumped into the swimming pool from the 3m high dive plank, he can ride a bicycle since this summer (although I make him wear a helmet though) and got his first stitches at 2...
The girl is 8, less of a risk-taker than her brother but she rides her bike offroad, swims like an eel and ride poneys since april (with already 3-4 falls...).
I haven't much sympathy for people who are over-protecting their children. In most cases, they are also lacking in the authority department...
Mine too. All our kids are scratched, dented, and generally dirty, but that is the way childhood is supposed to be.
I had an encounter recently over this issue when we were living at our old house. One of the moms in our cul-de-sac came up to the porch (I was smoking a cigar and reading a book while the kids drove around the circle on their Big Wheels) and asked if I would ask our kids to put on helmets or if they needed to borrow some of theirs. Now normally we got along very well with this family, but I just had to ask "why?" The answer was that her own kids were not inclined to put on their helmets if ours didn't have helmets. I said as gently and respectfully as I could, that they were on Big Wheels and Trikes in a dead end street. What possible injury was the helmet supposed to be necessary to protect them from? She really didn't have an answer other than that it was just something we were supposed to do.
There is this all pervasive and ridiculous peer-pressure over here that assigns "bad parent" status to someone who allows their children to grow up in the same manner they did. I get the same nasty "non-helmet" looks from moms on occasion when we go for a walk as a family and I'm smoking a cigar - presumably they'll all be dead from carbon monoxide poisoning before we reach the end of the nature trail, or worse they'll be inclined to think that smoking cigars isn't an unspeakable crime when they grow up. Funny how this is how we classify "bad parent" rather than the people who are divorcing every fifteen minutes and/or utterly failing to train up their children ethically or set an example worthy of emulation.
Personally I want my kids to play war, eat dirt, bring home frogs, wrestle, play games taht we don't organize from start to finish, drive around without helmets, climb trees, and stand-up to bullies themselves.
- SEAGOON
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4- Members should post in a way that is respectful of other users and HTC. Flaming or abusing users is not tolerated.
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Thanks for the link, Seagoon... I just started a Life-Span Development (Psychology Class) this week. This article seems very pertinent... You might have helped me get some brownie points here :D
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Just an observation about the rigors of being a kid in Japan.
They aren't coddled in school, that's for sure. There is a different mindset toward educating and 'toughening' kids as preparation for adulthood. Yes, they wear helmets while riding to school, but imagine the complaining western kids and parents would do if schools were like this:
No air conditioning in Japanese classrooms. They learn to not complain when everyone is in the same boat.
Elementary school boys wear shorts until the designated date to switch. They have a good month of snow and below freezing weather to toughen them up, on purpose.
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omg, dont get me started.wtg guys, too many pansy arsed parents producing a record number of spoiled whiny little schitz.
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Good read
Interesting point about the bike helmets. You used to worry about peer pressure from other kids. Now its the other kids parents trying to shun or shame you into following their lead.
I remember growing up and going to Catholic School (K-6). Man those nuns were fast to whammy the knuckles with a ruler if you got out of line. Can you imagine that now a days? Heck they'd claim psychological damage and I'd own a cathedral
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A little bit of adversity builds determination and character.
But this whole article misses the whole point. The problem with America isn't 'fragile college students'. The problem is all the uneducated bozos who make up the majority of our population.
If you don't know anything, you won't be anything.
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really? so then edumacation is the be all end all then? do some research. what is the profesion that produces the greatest number of millionaires in the U.S. post the results if you wish.
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Well then you have these Judges who decide that kids who fell short of passing "deserve" to pass...and thus graduate anyway. So rather than these kids feel ashamed for not making it, this judge wanted to save them that...so instead they'll face the world without being completely prepared for what awaits them...college, etc
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Originally posted by storch
really? so then edumacation is the be all end all then? do some research. what is the profesion that produces the greatest number of millionaires in the U.S. post the results if you wish.
Hollywood actors! :D
Storch, being rich doesn't neccesarily (?) make one smart. Smarter than me, perhaps... but not "smart".
I am like most pi**ed off at some parents of my generation. A friend's kid (4 y/old) was hitting me with a stick on my (injured) back... as I told him to stop, his mom told me not to say anything because "he is trying to get your attention, if you don't pay him attention, he will stop".
:mad:
I answered that if she didn't do anything real quick, he'd get his 1st (very needed) spanking from me. Needless to say this put some kind of dent in our friendship.
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Here's a story from Germany.
A queue of people is waiting at a cash registry. A 6 year old boy keeps ramming the guy in front of him with the shopping chart. (Guy was a student, about 20 I guess). The guy asks the boy to stop this. After a few times he asks the boys mother to keep him at bay. The mother replies "I won't, I do not belive in that way of upbringing, kids should be free to do what they want"
The Student is somewhat baffled, then reaches into his shopping chart and gets a bottle of liquid honey. He opens the bin, walks to the mother and pours the honey over her hair. She goes yelling, "Why are you doing that" and he replies: "I was also grown up that way" :D
While I am typing this, my wife is in the Kindergarten with our daughter which is 2.
She is well protected by us, but yet, has had a scruffle with the dogs, has had a cow trying to ram her (she hit back!) and has mostly been sleeping in her own room for a year.
I grew up somewhat rougher than I'd expose to her though.....
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Originally posted by storch
really? so then edumacation is the be all end all then? do some research. what is the profesion that produces the greatest number of millionaires in the U.S. post the results if you wish.
Sports?
If you're educated, you're going to get a better job than if you weren't educated. If you're educated, you're going to make better decisions than if you weren't educated.
A person has to want to be educated. Education is simply knowing alot of stuff about alot of stuff. School helps a person with education, but its not the total package.
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education is not bad.... even U.S. education teaches some skills in between the lines.
Rolex is explaining a different type of education. If we did that here we would have better educated people.
What is being said is that U.S. education is a huge failure... it is better than nothing but still a failure when compared to what it could be.
many people are self taught or take courses later in life. They do fine... Hell.... I could probly scrape up some kind of degree with the 70 or so units I have taken over the years if I cared about such things.
I was not a child when I took these courses the second time around... I did not put up with any political or social bent to my math and science classes and neither did the other adults taking them with their own hard earned money and free time after working 8 or ten hours that day.... no time for that crap.
but the young musheads will listen to anyone who gets up there and preaches... and they don't care if he is wasting their time or daddies money... they got nothing else to do.
lazs
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Originally posted by AquaShrimp
Sports?
If you're educated, you're going to get a better job than if you weren't educated. If you're educated, you're going to make better decisions than if you weren't educated.
A person has to want to be educated. Education is simply knowing alot of stuff about alot of stuff. School helps a person with education, but its not the total package.
come on now!! you are espousing education but won't take a single step at researching which is the most well remunerated group in America? ahh the state of education in America is in dire straits indeed.
storch
(college dropout)
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Originally posted by Saintaw
Hollywood actors! :D
Storch, being rich doesn't neccesarily (?) make one smart. Smarter than me, perhaps... but not "smart".
I am like most pi**ed off at some parents of my generation. A friend's kid (4 y/old) was hitting me with a stick on my (injured) back... as I told him to stop, his mom told me not to say anything because "he is trying to get your attention, if you don't pay him attention, he will stop".
:mad:
I answered that if she didn't do anything real quick, he'd get his 1st (very needed) spanking from me. Needless to say this put some kind of dent in our friendship.
come on now!!! no guessing. research the question. and you, you are a frenchman so you don't count. (not even with your fingers). if a friend's kid did that to me he would be spanked as would the friend for such an assinine attitude. :D
storch
(educator of friend's uneducables)
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I usually pull kid's hair.
Kid then got attention, and will stop, yes :D
But the maneuver with the honey was good ;)
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Originally posted by lazs2
many people are self taught or take courses later in life. They do fine... Hell.... I could probly scrape up some kind of degree with the 70 or so units I have taken over the years if I cared about such things.
Don't forget the home schooled. They are doing much better on SATs than those from public schools.
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Have to agree with you 100% sir, waaaaaay back in 1983, I joined up and became a paratrooper, I grew up in a neighborhood that would be considered tough today, my daily trip to school consisted of various scouting missions and moving under cover, otherwise the other school kids would spot you and the game was up, I had to virtually fight my way to school and back again.
Same after school, messing around in the public park with the other guys from my area was also risky, other gangs would venture in and it was all hands to the pump.
So rather than end up living my life like this or ending up in prison, I joined up, Had a great time, 3 meals a day, money to buy ciggarettes and beer, Training was ok, shouted at you a few times, a few punches here and there and you were done.
Joined up with my unit and had a great time.
I still keep in touch my some old buddies who are now Instructors and are getting ready to retire, they tell me these horror stories of kids who they want to fail passing as the numbers have to be reached, not being able to use more than 75% of their voice etc.
I remember one of them telling about some kid froze at the Grenade pit, he screwed in the detanator, pulled the clip to release the spring and then froze, normally you would end up with a sore face and/or a broken nose, but not this time... wimps? you better belive it.
Hawco
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I can see this stuff, it was a good read.
The town I grew up in had a huge park, the park had a HUGE all wooden playground with a two story wooden castle and a log chain bridge and poles to slide down, all on tanbark.
It was awsome. Sure we fell off, sure a few of us broke bones over the years. Sure we got bloodie elbows and knees, but we had fun, and no parents came anywere near the thing.
Now its all gone.
Replaced with plastic crap, and foam padding on the ground, but with nothing high enough to fall off of and hurt yourself.
We played with real bows, I had my first gun at 12, I almost burnt my house down once, I constantly blew stuff up with fire crackers, and my dad new about most of it, but understood it was boys being boys. Hell I was driving a 350 HP car at 17 and learned how to keep in running and taken my old mans guns to the shooting range and no one cared. ( I did have to have the ammo on my so a parent had to buy it for me)
Now, minors can't shoot without a parent around.
I see none of that, hell none of the kids I see in my current area play with each other outside at all.
Damn shame.
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You're speaking as survivors...and luck had lots to do.
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Originally posted by Angus
You're speaking as survivors...
Only survivors can speak at all,
and yet so many dont learn from the past,
they prefer Darwin to decide...
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Originally posted by Angus
You're speaking as survivors...and luck had lots to do.
LOL
No we are not. Not a single kid died in my neighborhood growing up. Broken limbs, hit by cars, rode into cars on bike, jumped bikes off home made ramps, etc, but not one death.
Speaking of bikes, I got my first BMX diamond back when I was 12, the day I got it, I pried or broke off every reflector, even the ones in the pedals.
Only wimps had reflectors.
None of us had helmets, and if one of us had, he would have gotten a beat down for being a wimp.
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Originally posted by lazs2
could not agree more.
We spend the first 15-18 years of our lives trying to get out of the house so that mommy can't tell us what to do "for our own good"
and then we vote for democrats to tell us what to do and tell us it isn't our fault but that they know what is best for us.
It all started when we let women have the right to vote. They put security ahead of freedom every frigging time.
lazs
So lazs , why not run for office?
You sound like the type of guy that won't sell out,get caught,and become just another sorry jailbird.
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Originally posted by storch
come on now!! you are espousing education but won't take a single step at researching which is the most well remunerated group in America? ahh the state of education in America is in dire straits indeed.
storch
(college dropout)
Thats called the 'rational ignorance' effect. Rather than spend time on something that doesn't really have an effect on me, I use my time for something more productive.
So basically, my argument in the thread is this. We shouldn't be worried about the 'nation of wimps', but rather the 'nation of handsomehunkes'. And by no means do you have to be a wimp in order to be educated.
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When I was 5 my Dad was under the house and needed me to help him under there. I wouldn't go under the house (because I had watched a Sci-Fi movie about giant tarantulas in caves) and was literally terrified. Dad finally realized that, but he was kinda pissed because he didn't know why I refused to help him. He thought I might be a wimp at first, but he understood after I told him why. I had to be gradually introduced to going under the house from the other end of the house, where the entrance was bigger and I could see better.:D
Les
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Originally posted by Angus
You're speaking as survivors...and luck had lots to do.
lofl. yeah, i survived childhood. north carolina '61-'79. you weren't there, man. and les, that day you went under the house, thats called courage.
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"The elliptical wing of the Spitfires had fantastic characteristics, great lift. They were very maneuverable. We couldn't catch them in a steep climb"
Gunther Rall
gunther rall could have used a few lessons from the JBs.btw angus, i am not laughing at you, i am laughing at your statement.i am not blaming the kids that are unfortunate enough to be growing up today. i am blaming the parents and politicians for trying to regulate every fing facet of their lives.
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mojo... I have a "interesting" past that might make it "difficult".
There is a candidate for state assembly running here in kalifornia who states in very clear terms that the government is too big and we give it too much money allready and need to start rolling back.. he is well backed.... or reasonably so.. and good looking and bright.
He does not have a snowballs chance in hell in kalifornia....I will vote for him tho. I am encouraged that he has gotten this far really.
lazs
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This one:
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Originally posted by Angus
You're speaking as survivors...and luck had lots to do.
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LOL
No we are not. Not a single kid died in my neighborhood growing up. Broken limbs, hit by cars, rode into cars on bike, jumped bikes off home made ramps, etc, but not one death.
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LOL as much as you will. In my neighbourhood and along with getting into the teens, that was not the case. There was close calls and some deaths. There were some crippled as well.
There is nothing wrong with trying to cushion things out a bit, but that however does not include the absence of some scars and bruises, getting cold, getting a bit burned, and so on. You have to bump the wall some times if you see what I mean ;)
I was a lucky kid. Only broke 1 bone properly, and didn't have a talk with mr. death properly in my childhood, - first proper close-shave was at 29!
But as a parent of 2, I selfishly declare that I will try to keep my kids out of harm's way, and there is not much chance I will let them have a go at some of the stuff which I (against my parent's knowledge, hehe) was up to in my childhood. . .
Is there an equilibrum in this business?
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yep.. we would make mini bikes out of small frame bicycles with utility wheels and no brakes and a 15hp chainsaw engine that would make the thing fly! Nobody died.
helmets were and are for dorks. Nothing looks sillier to me to this day than spandex and "alien vs predetor" helmets.... like they are all tour de france guys or something.... they are just riding to starbucks ferchristsakes!
Seatbelts, helmets, warnings on everything from mirrors to the glowing element on your stove (caution... glowing red element may cause severe burns if touched)
men in the self help section of some petulia oil smelling bookstore... Grown men afraid of firearms.. fast food and smoking bans..
I don't know where it will end.
lazs
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Originally posted by lazs2
helmets were and are for dorks. Nothing looks sillier to me to this day
wimps?
(http://www.travelworks.de/wat-usa/img/250X145%20American%20Football.jpg)
real man?
(http://www.clangoroso.com.br/blog/media/all%20blacks.jpg)
lol how true !
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Originally posted by lazs2
yep.. we would make mini bikes out of small frame bicycles with utility wheels and no brakes and a 15hp chainsaw engine that would make the thing fly! Nobody died.
I had buddy that had a minibike with a 10hp chainsaw engine. I had a Kawasaki 85cc. We raced, I took him off the line but when I hit about 50mph he shot past me almost like I was standing still. My bike vapor locked when I hit about 65. Those were the days. :D
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When I first got there, I felt ambivalent to US highschool rules suspending or expelling you for any fighting on campus.
Back in France you could just step outside and fist things out for a few minutes before most teachers stepped in. As long as you were outside of school grounds, you'd be entirely ignored.
The extra PE in the US sort of made up for it, but there's nothing like a good fight to settle things with the day's bonehead.
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When I was in school moot it was the same... the teachers had nothing to do with fights off campus or even... after school in the fields.
Durring school... we were allowed to put on gloves and box in the gym with a coach ref.
Boxing and wrestling was required in P.E.
lazs
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same here. by the time we reached highschool there were few fights because everyone knew who the alpha males were, the questions had long been settled in the playgrounds in elementary and middleschool. If a new kid enrolled we took him out and kicked his bellybutton to see where he fit in the pecking order.