Photo credit: lepiaf.geo
Parents today are trying hard to build up their kids’ self-esteem. While parents in previous generations were often emotionally distant, busy with work and with providing the family’s basic necessities, parents today often lavish tons of attention on their kids and turn the kids into the center of their universe.
But it looks like in parenting, just like in other areas of life, too much of a good thing cab actually be bad. Psychologists warn that we are raising a generation of smug, spolied, self-centered kids who expect the world to revolve around them.
These young people are headed towards a huge shock when they learn that the world does not actually revolve around them and that they are not the bright stars that their parents made them think they are. Many of them will have to learn the hard way that like most of us, they are in fact quite average.
Average is fine, of course. You can lead a happy, fulfilled life and make a good living if you’re average and willing to work hard. But if you grew up thinking you’re way above average and won’t be happy with anything but the best, you are in for an unpleasant reality check.
When parents constantly overpraise their kids, and when school gives higher grades than kids deserve, kids develop great expectations about their chances of reaching the stars at work and in family life. Later, when things don’t work out as well as they expected, they are at risk of becoming depressed and giving up altogether.
Experts warn that previous generations had more realistic ambitions. Today’s teenagers have been taught to reach for the moon without being warned that many of them will not make it.
There’s a fine line between encouraging your kids to be the best that they can, and promising them that they would get everything they want in life if they just put their mind to it.
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Hi Vered. This is a really good point. There has to be some balance, because, as you say - you could be setting your child up for disappointment.
Parenting is really tough isn’t it? I don’t think any of us are ever going to get it totally right.
It IS tough. I always find it interesting when non-parents say things like “how hard can it be, people have been doing it forever”, because YES IT’S HARD, especially when you’re trying to do a good job.