OPINION

I’m no psychiatrist (and I could probably use one), but it seems to me that shielding children from any and all real-life disappointments does not prepare them very well for actual life. In true competition, just as life, there are winners, losers, victors, vanquished, successes and failures. Teaching personal responsibility could be a course in itself. This idea of “competitions” where everyone gets a feel-good medal, grades that are not reflective of success or failure and constant reinforcement of lack of effort results in quite a shock when a teenager encounters being bested by a peer, even if they were cheated out of their goal. Life is not fair and you reap what you sow. If you believe you are going to succeed in life, have all those ipods, iphones, LCD televisions and nice cars without working harder than someone else, you are going to be very depressed indeed.

I think we need to take a step back say 20-30 years and understand why. Is it because the internet is making people anti-social? Or is it because we now have gov't in our face in every corner of life we turn to? Or could it be that we now have so many laws on the books that it is impossible to have fun. Or could it be back then a single income could support a family and the family was more 'tight-knitted'? Or could it be that people no longer feel in control of their life because everyone else is making the decisions for them?

My point is it seems we keep looking at today's problems but without understanding how we got to where we are at. Instead, we have evolved ourselves into a heavily medicated society with the illusion our problems will be solved.

Bill Burris, spot on! Great comment...

I agree that teaching personal responsibility is a must. We also need to allow children to fail at an earlier age, so that they can learn how to get back up. Most successes were preceded by failure, so we all need to learn how to get back and try again. Ultimately, we need to define success on our own terms, not by how our sick consumer society defines it.

Failures are of course part of normal life. However a good coach balances the expectations that he places on his team with their capabilities. He pushes them, but does not break them. A good coach can both demonstrate that he cares for his team as well as push them to do things they don't want to do. A good coach can be both mother and father, depending upon the circumstances.

Sometimes a person needs a soft touch, sometimes an iron fist.

A teacher is a coach for learning. Of course we seem to pay our good coaches a lot more than our good teachers...