Children in today’s schools have become victims of self-esteem programs, and it shows at the high school level.

As a parent, I had to deal with low self-esteem with my youngest, that began at the entry of school. It was a struggle, finding methods to promote self-esteem, at the same time getting rid of the self-esteem messages at the school level. The messages of ’ I am the best’  or ’ I am special’, that promotes and speaks loudly about entitlement, without earning it.

As the article, on the Rise and Fall of Self-Esteem states on page 3, “Ultimately, kids who are brought up in an environment where there’s no clear link between personal accomplishment and self-worth pay a hefty emotional and even physical price down the road, they argue. Sudden doses of reality come as a real shock to students who lack the emotional fortitude for dealing effectively with failure or challenges to their lofty opinions of themselves. Such rude awakenings might drive kids to violence-even Columbine-level violence-when confronted with rejection or proof of their own inadequacies.”

The above statement, can be seen in today’s high schools. There is a great many students suffering from false self-esteem, and are not handling failure or challenges in their school lives. Nor are the parents, who are demanding a re-write or a change in the grade or another common thing, when demanding the other child to have accommodations taken away from them.

Why?  The LD child received the top grade, and beat their own child. This child who complained to their parents, it is so unfair, through their tears. What makes it so delicious, when the teacher states the LD child did it without accommodations, and suggest to the parents, their own child should have studied for the test.

I just finished reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Bright-sided. How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America”

http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/brightsided.htm

The self esteem activities described in classrooms seem much the same as the imposed positive thinking Ehrenreich decries.

Ehrenreich is particularly worried about how positive thinking leads to poor decision making. She uses the example of people who were ousted from the American financial industry for raising alarm about subprime mortgages. They should have been listened to, but if our culture always blames the message bringer for the moral failing of not being positive, we feel justified in not listening to those who have news we don’t want to hear.

I can see the same thing in schools. Where parents are imposing a bit of realism, and where the school does not want to hear it. And in some cases, the failure of the child, the blame is put on the parents for not remaining positive enough.

This is what happens when society is fed a steady diet of character development and when schools focus too much on social engineering and not enough on skill development and mastery of the basics.

Excellence in anything, whether sports, academics or cupcake baking depends on being able to measure that excellence in a comparison and/or competitive way.

In athletics there’s a huge difference in the approach of a coach coaching a recreational league, than there is with a coach coaching for a competitive elite team.

The message that Ottawa soccer club is sending is that it’s wrong to excel and be too good.

Can we imagine if the Olympics were run on a goal the same philosophy of mediocrity.

Why wouldn’t this soccer association work to make the weaker teams stronger by offering sessions and seminars to improve skills rather than lowering the bar for those who can reach it or beyond it.

I’m pretty sure that the various sporting associations are picking up the bad character development habits that we see in schools. It’s not cool to be too confident, or too smart.

Reality hits hard when in competition for jobs. If you’re not confident in your abilities and can demonstrate it….that does wonders for self-esteem, doesn’t it?