Puzzicato
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- Ex-pat Ozzie in Greater London, UK
There's a devastating article in the current Atlantic Monthly exploring exactly that idea -- that by inculcating kids with a success-uber-alles attitude, parents are actually doing their children immeasurable harm, producing a generation that can't handle failure.
A year or so back, a half-witted article came out blaming Mister Rogers, of all people, for the prevalence of the "extreme self esteem" movement in modern parenting -- which is utterly ridiculous, since Mister Rogers himself never taught any such a belief. His philosophy was that kids should be taught to understand that failure was as much a part of life as success, and that sometimes you can't have what you want -- and that failing doesn't make you a bad person. Modern parents would do well to follow that teaching.
A few months back we were having dinner with some friends. One of them was telling us about something stupid she had done (can't remember what it was, but it was within-acceptable-norms stupidity) and said "I couldn't believe I did that". Her 6 year old piped up "But mummy, you have to believe in yourself! You can do anything if you believe in yourself!" I almost died. Is this honestly the sort of prosperity doctrine psychobabble that kids hear now?
As a child I always found a sort of collegiality in losing - only one person won, so there were lots more losers than winners.