Self esteem self-destructs… The Praise Malaise, part 1 I've taken a lot of heat over the years from readers for criticizing today's no-fault parenting… And I'll admit it. I spare no opportunity to lay into modern parents and teachers for buying into the notion that "self esteem" is the single most important thing to kids' development into successful, well-adjusted, fully functioning adults. But as I'll show you over the next few Daily Doses, this concept is not based on science at all. It's just a tonic for parents to avoid the heartache they'll feel when they discipline their children - and a way for them to backhandedly give props to themselves! As a preface to the proof, I'd like to point out that this "sovereignty of the self" school of child-rearing has risen in more or less lock-step with things like childhood depression, drug addiction, medication, suicide, obesity, and under-achievement since around 1969. That was the year a bloated tome called The Psychology of Self-Esteem was loosed on a hapless and impressionable public filled with drug-addled, hung-over young adults who didn't count on their backseat, rock-show "free love" making parents out of them. This book, in my opinion more aptly titled The Industry of Self-Esteem, has forged one whopper of a career for "psychotherapist and philosopher" (honest, that's how he's billed on his Web site) Nathaniel Branden. He has been able to milk this cockamamie concept into millions of dollars over the last 37 years - garnering who knows how many paid lectures and publishing over 4 million copies of 20 books relating to this idea… But guess what: A recent expose` in the February 19th issue of the typically uber-left New York magazine summarizes how a stunning amount of rigorous research all but proves that those ego strokes today's parents lay on kids are doing nothing but ruining them! In other words: It proves that I'M RIGHT. Again. And finally, I've got the ammunition to prove it (I thought no one would ever actually study this in today's PC world, but I was wrong). As it turns out, the competition-free, trophies-for-all, everyone's-a-winner, I'm-OK-you're-OK, blameless, goal-less, discipline-less way most of the pointy-heads say we should raise our kids is turning them into timid, neurotic, underachieving, narcissistic junkies: Early in life for praise, later in life for things like pills and sex. Keep reading… Yes, much as it might pain all those bleeding heart leftists, brainwashed teachers, smarmy guidance counselors, hack pop-psychologists and linguine-spined, limp-wristed parents out there - the old cornpone country-doc curmudgeon (with the well-adjusted adult children, I might add) was right about child-rearing all along… Basically, the findings of both some new research and some more rigorous analysis of existing research concludes that telling kids how smart, gifted, or special they are does NOT spur them to greater heights of achievement - it can actually cause them to fail, not try, and ultimately underachieve. In this first-ever 4-part Daily Dose series, I'll tell you all the stunning ins and outs. But first, you'll need a little background: According to the New York piece, over 15,000 "scholarly" articles were written between 1970 and 2000 about self-esteem and its ramifications for every aspect of life - grades, professional achievement, personal relationships, even sex… But in 2003, the Association of Psychological Science asked one leading proponent of self-esteem-based psychology (Dr. Roy Baumeister) to review this massive body of research. His conclusion: That all but 200 of these 15,000 papers featured studies that did not meet his standards for scientific rigor. In other words, the underpinning of self-esteem theory was mostly JUNK SCIENCE. Beyond this, he found that these 200 studies that did pass muster indicated that high levels of self-esteem did NOT translate into higher grades, greater career success, less alcohol consumption, or even a reduced tendency toward violence. Remember, this was the conclusion of an ADVOCATE of self-esteem-based psychology… Or rather, I should call him a former advocate. Now, he's on the right side of the child-rearing fence (my side). These days, he's writing about how excessive praise retards academic performance - and how modern parents' compulsion to worship their children is nothing more than an exercise in self-congratulation. Quoted in the article, Baumeister says that when parents praise their kids, "it's not that far from praising themselves." Needless to say, these findings have opened a can of worms within the profession. Find out how deep this rabbit-hole goes (I'm mixing metaphors, I know) in the next two Daily Doses… | 
