The Biggest FAILURE in Parenting History, and the Stress It Has Caused Parents and Children

The self-esteem movement: what a fiasco!

One of the biggest failures in the history of child-rearing practices has been the infamous self-esteem movement, which began in the late 1960s with a book by Nathaniel Branden called The Psychology of Self-Esteem. He wrote many books on the topic and inspired thousands of scholarly articles on the benefits of self-esteem between 1970 and 2000. In 1987, California instituted a State Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem. Schools were encouraged to praise and reward students constantly as well as eliminate things like honor rolls that might make some students feel bad. Correcting with red ink became a no-no. Sports organizations stopped keeping score for young children and began systematically giving trophies to everyone on the team — just for showing up.

In 2003, Roy Beaumeister, Ph.D., a previous supporter of the self-esteem movement, began to question the theory and conducted a review of the 2000+ studies this theory was supposedly based on. He found that only 200 of those studies even met the rigorous scientific standards, and (surprise!) NOT ONE STUDY showed any kind of correlation between self-esteem and anything. It doesn’t seem to deliver any of the confidence and success benefits we believed it would.

Negative, instead of positive

In fact, what they are now discovering is that the whole self-esteem theory is backfiring.  A new study divided college students, who had done poorly on their midterm exams, into two groups. One group was encouraged to take responsibility and study harder, and the other was told to keep their heads up and feel good about themselves. Naturally, the second group, the self-esteem group who did not buckle down and prepare, did significantly worse on the final exam.

It’s not really our fault

Most parents love their children and want to be good parents. But, after 30 years of hype, parents and teachers alike have been indoctrinated into the self-esteem movement. We now believe that self-esteem is something we can GIVE our children by praising them, helping them to succeed, and shielding them from bumps and bruises along the way. If we give them enough compliments and enough trophies and enough A’s, they will think like winners and have the confidence to go out into the world and be successful.  That’s the theory, but sadly enough, it’s not reality.

A feel-good parenting style

Who doesn’t enjoy watching a child’s eyes light up when you fix problems or tell him how wonderful he is? It’s certainly a lot easier than experiencing a child’s disappointment when he doesn’t get an A on a science project, doesn’t make the team, or doesn’t get invited to the popular kid’s birthday party. Life can be tough. Who wouldn’t want to protect their sweet child from all those difficult and painful experiences? Sounds like a good plan, right? We’ve sort of overlooked a couple of very important things, though.

The sad and serious results

By trying to GIVE our children self-esteem, MAKE them happy, and CREATE success for them, we are robbing them of the opportunity to learn the important lessons that prepare them for real life and make them emotionally strong. And now we are beginning to see the sad results of the self-esteem fiasco: High school and college students, who are anxious, stressed-out, and depressed are turning to alcohol and drugs to escape. College students, who lack basic life skills, can’t cope with the frustrations, disappointments, and raw truth that they have been shielded from all their lives. Boomerang kids are dropping out of college and running back home to mom and dad. The self-esteem movement has produced a generation of kids who are totally unprepared for life — the exact opposite of what we work so hard to create for our children.

Tiger Mother: right idea, wrong approach

The 2012 Tiger Mother controversy is an interesting example of how American parents feel about these two opposite approaches. Amy Chua, who calls herself the Tiger Mother, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal titled “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior.” She used brutal criticism and grueling schedules to push her children to excel. Her daughters were not allowed to sleepover with friends, watch TV, choose activities or get less than an A. Horrified American mothers jumped all over her, criticizing how tough and mean she was. Yet, almost in the same breath, they were wondering if we Americans are, perhaps, too easy on our kids and not doing a good job of preparing them for life. Their instincts are right. We DO need to make our children strong and resilient. Amy Chua had the right idea, but the wrong approach.

Shocking Statistics

20% of teens will experience depression before they reach adulthood. Fifteen million prescriptions for anti-depressants are written every year for children and teens.

Millions of kids cut themselves on purpose, desperately looking for relief

from the overwhelming stress, anxiety and insecurity.

A survey of U.S. high school students found:

17% reported “seriously considering” suicide,

13% reported creating a plan, and

8% reported trying to take their own life.

The American College Health Association surveyed 100,000 students in 153 different university and college campuses across the country. They asked these students how they felt (emotionally) over the previous 12 months. 

84% felt overwhelmed 

60% felt very sad

57% felt very lonely

51% felt extremely anxious 

46% felt hopeless

31% felt so depressed that they could not function

Lethal combination

How can praising our kids cause such problems? If all we were doing was praising, fixing, helping, and protecting, kids would be relaxed and happy. But a competitive culture, that values accomplishments above all else, adds the pressure that causes anxiety and stress. We’re worried about what our children need to do to get into the best colleges. So, while we’re trying to GIVE our children self-esteem, we are also trying to CREATE success for them by pushing them to participate and excel in more sports, classes, and activities. The combination of these two things is lethal, since kids haven’t had the emotional experiences they need to learn how to handle the pressures and subsequent disappointments. Stress comes from believing you don’t have what it takes to accomplish what is expected of you. It’s no wonder that many of our youth are feeling anxious, stressed, and depressed. They are not even prepared for basic childhood.

Out-of-control parents

Parents are so frantic to help their kids succeed and protect them from negative consequences that they are doing all kinds of crazy things. They get into arguments (and fights) with coaches and referees at sports games, embarrassing their families and themselves. They throw respect and fairness out the window, expecting special treatment from teachers and administrators for a child who has misbehaved in school. Kids are criticized and even punished for not performing well.  A couple went so far as to plant drugs in the car of a PTA president who was “too tough” on their first-grade son. These parents get so wrapped up in the fierce need to make life turn out the way they want for their children, that you wonder if they even realize what they are doing.

REAL self-esteem

If we used common sense, we would never have gotten into this mess. What made us believe that telling a child they are great all the time, and giving them trophies for just showing up, was going to prepare them for life? Self-esteem means seeing yourself as a worthy or valuable person. You feel valuable because you add value to the world in some way. Confidence comes from being competent: learning new skills, taking on challenges, overcoming adversity, and handling difficult emotions. There is no substitute for the real thing. This is what makes us strong and resilient. We feel competent and confident that we can handle whatever comes our way because we’ve done it before and we know we can do it again. That’s real self-esteem.

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