A less-than-apparent parent trap The Praise Malaise, part 4 As you know if you've been a reader of mine for any length of time, I haven't devoted a lot of ink to the discussion of parenting in this forum - except to lament the effects of poor parenting gone wrong (which I do quite often)… This isn't to say that I don't have very strong and well-reasoned opinions about raising decent kids. It's just that I don't often have enough of a topical basis to warrant going in-depth into the "care and feeding" of well-adjusted kids. But the blockbuster New York magazine expose` on the fallacy of 37 years' worth of self-esteem theory that formed the basis for the first 3 parts of this series gave me one. Here's what I hope those essays have proved to you: Focusing on building children's self-esteem by constantly telling them how smart, beautiful or special they are robs them of the crucial lessons proper parenting teaches: Gumption, perseverance, integrity, and selflessness. These are the things girls and boys of ANY level of giftedness need to succeed and be well adjusted… Constant praise also transforms kids from resourceful, self-directed, healthy competitors into selfish, intellectually lazy, failure-phobic, image-conscious praise junkies. This is the biggest crime of all - because inevitably, these needy kids become needy adolescents and adults. And what will take the place of their addiction to praise and ego strokes once they aren't living with Mommy and Daddy anymore? You guessed it: Addictions to drugs, prescription meds, adrenaline, alcohol, food and sex. These are the places where more and more young adults are getting their fixes in the absence of constant worshipful praise from parents. Like I said in part one of this series, the rise of these addictions has tracked almost perfectly with the ascension of self-esteem theory in popular psychology. It may seem like a stretch to think these things are correlated, but it's not when you think about it… Rewards - like praise, for example - trigger the release of pleasurable, drug-like dopamine in the brain. If people become conditioned to frequent rewards their whole lives (at the hands of parents and teachers), they actually go into a kind of withdrawal as they become more autonomous and these "attaboys" become less frequent. This can cause them to look for ways to seek similar sensations from other sources. Unhealthy ones, like the ones I listed above. Makes sense, right? Read on… Three things bother me about this: - The fact that this whole "self-esteem" movement is arguably nothing more than a marketing scheme to sell self-help and psychology books - yet it's being used to enact ridiculously restrictive education policies that keep kids from learning about themselves through healthy competition (things like academic contests or playing tag and dodge-ball, activities that are banned in many school systems).
- The fact that almost certainly MILLIONS of kids and young adults have suffered the consequences of the addictions self-esteem theory has bred in them. Praising our kids without reason has made us a society of overweight, over-sexed, over-medicated, under-confident, under-equipped underachievers.
- This quack pop-psychology movement has enabled generations of parents to justify shirking their responsibility to discipline, guide, and set examples for children in the name of preserving their fragile and precious self-esteem. This is really the worst part of the deal, the fact that it gives parents an excuse NOT to parent - and feel good about it.
The bottom line is this: If people don't want their kids (or grandkids) to turn out drug addicted, underpaid, welfare-bound, STD-riddled, ethically compromised and terminally lazy, they'll stop blindly showering them with undeserved praise just to pat themselves on the backs. Instead, they'll start returning to a parenting system where integrity is its own reward - and where criticism has its rightful place in spurring excellence. The grand irony here is that this may not even be possible anymore. So many parents, teachers, and educators have bought into self-esteem theory (because it makes THEM feel so good about themselves) that children nowadays could feel persecuted and unloved by comparison if they aren't praised every second of the day like all their friends. We may now literally be trapped into lavishing the kudos on our kids… All of a sudden home schooling doesn't look like such a bad idea, does it? | 
