Time to crush nasty little egos.

A School offers to change change children's grades so as not to hurt feelings.  Even if this isn't true, it has a certain truthiness to it doesn't it?  You just know that somewhere out there, there is a group of people that think that this would be a good idea. "My child needs a report card that says that she got straight As or she'll think that she isn't as smart as she thought she was and really she's brilliant."  I can see that if you bought into The Secret then this would be a good strategy.  It takes faking it until you make it to the next level.  We'll fake it so she thinks she made it and then she'll make it for real, or we'll keep faking it and she'll think she's made it for real and that's really the same thing.

Except apparently it isn’t.  Studies show that depression and suicide in young people are increasing.  How can this be if they are all such beautiful, clever and special flowers?  Why are they as fragile as snowflakes in the midday sun, melting into puddles of water?  Perhaps, and this is just a guess, it’s because of the dissonance they experience when the real world smashes the illusions that we’ve been encouraging.  They meet someone really smart; they realise that their ideas aren’t that original; there is someone else better than them at everything they do.  We are all unique, special and different but most of us aren’t exceptional and none of us are exceptional at everything.

                                                                                     

Which brings me to my title.  Would we be better off bringing up our children by crushing their nasty little egos?  Telling our little flowers that really, they are not that smart or fast and nobody owes them anything.  If they want to do well they’ll have to study and train and practice.  If they want friends they’ll need to be friendly.  If they want people to treat them well, then they should treat others well. 

But we can’t crush their dreams; they’ll blame us for the rest of their lives.  “I wanted to be an astronaut, but my mother told me I wasn’t smart enough, so I gave up and now I have issues.”  Well if she really isn’t smart enough, she won’t realise that particular dream anyway and it will be crushed and she will blame you anyway for setting her up to fail.  “Why didn’t you tell me?”  she’ll ask. “Now my whole self-image is a lie.”

Of course telling them the truth isn’t necessarily crushing their dreams, merely pointing out that some dreams are harder to reach than others.  Some require a lot more work and  maybe the pay out won’t make the effort worth it.  Maybe this dream isn’t worth pursuing.   Maybe there is something more in line with your actual abilities. 

It’s a freaky idea, to crush someone’s ego but don’t we all need to know that we’re not the centre of the universe.