I read recently a book by Madeline Levine, a psychiatrist in Marin County, California, called The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids. Some of the stories in there will give you the cold sweats. However, I did recognize a little too much of my family in it. My children are privileged; they have access to a lot of comfort. Do they have to work hard? Not usually. We require chores to be done and grades to be good, but overall, are they experiencing real challenge? In an article in the New York Times last year called, "What If the Secret to Success is Failure?", Paul Tough interviewed the headmaster of Riverdale Country School, a prestigious private school in New York City. Dominic Randolph firmly believes that the only way for people to succeed in life is for them to first fail. In other words, the old adage is true: "Adversity builds character." If all we experience growing up is success, what will we do when tough times come?
So, it seems that the traits we want our children to have, such as integrity, wisdom, bravery, gratitude, and self-control can't be just given to them, but must be earned through experience. And we, as parents, can't give our own experiences to our children and have them take our word for it. By keeping them from difficulty, we are creating them to be eternally dependent as well as insulating them from the challenges that will make them the people God designed for them to be.
These experts are going back to the Bible, whether they realize it or not. What does the Bible say about self-esteem--the kind we are fostering in many of our schools today? It has another word for it--pride. Pride is a serious sin, and has been said to be the root of all others. What are the fruits of the Spirit? Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Sounds like what these social scientists are calling "character." Lo and behold, God's way is the best way.
I welcome your comments! Here are some other articles I have been reading recently: "Rethinking Self-Esteem: Why Non-Profits Should Stop Pushing Self-Esteem and Start Endorsing Self-Control," by Roy Baumeister in Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter 2005; "The Trouble With Self-Esteem" by Lauren Slater in The New York Times, February 3, 2002.
Jennifer Cable
Elementary Principal