The Myth of the Spoiled Child

by Alfie Kohn

  People who are focused on relative success have a curious understanding of “high academic standards.” They seem to use this term not in the context of students’ skill at formulating questions, the incisiveness of their thinking, or their ability to look at problems from multiple perspectives. Rather, it refers to how few high grades are given. Stringent grading, a more “rigorous” course or school, is assumed to be better not because it’s associated with other intellectual outcomes but because that’s how better is defined.

  Conversely, no matter how high the quality of students’ thinking, from this perspective we’ve abandoned our commitment to excellence if a lot of those students receive A’s. This attitude perfectly captures the scarcity mentality, the assumption that education, like life itself, is a race in which most cannot prevail. Once again, that’s not based on the reality that everyone can’t win but on an ideology that confuses succeeding with winning.

  DEPRIVATION

  Alongside conditionality and scarcity we find the ideological engine behind BGUTI—namely, a determination to make sure that things aren’t too easy for kids. The premise here is not only that deprivation, struggle, and sacrifice are useful preparation for life’s hardships, but that there’s simply something objectionable about sparing kids from having to cope with deprivation, struggle, and sacrifice.22

  I’m reminded of a famous ad campaign to sell Listerine mouthwash, which was based on the assumption that because it tasted vile, it obviously had to work well. The flip side of this way of thinking is that we ought to be wary of anything that’s too appealing. “Feel-good” and “touchy-feely” have become all-purpose epithets to disparage whatever seems suspiciously pleasurable. This is particularly true in education, where these terms are often applied to authentic ways of evaluating learning (in place of standardized tests), a course of study that emphasizes creativity (rather than the memorization of facts), and having students learn in cooperative groups (instead of alone or against one another).

  Here, again, evidence that such practices are more effective may simply be waved aside. If something is enjoyable, that’s reason enough to describe it as touchy-feely and deem it unworthy of consideration. Progressive educators may make a case for creating a more engaging curriculum or for bringing kids in on making decisions, only to be informed rather huffily that life isn’t always going to be interesting (or responsive to kids’ preferences), and students had better learn to deal with that fact, like it or not.

  “Like it or not,” in fact, is a favorite phrase of people who think this way. Another one begins “It’s time they learned that . . . ”—the implication being that children should be introduced to frustration and unhappiness without delay. There’s work to be done! Life isn’t supposed to be fun and games! Self-denial—whose adherents generally presume to deny others as well—is closely connected to fear of pleasure, redemption through suffering, and fury at anyone who coddles or indulges children. H. L. Mencken’s definition of Puritanism seems apt here: “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

  Sometimes one suspects that the tacit message from such traditionalists is: “I don’t get everything I want—why should they?” The educator John Holt once remarked that if people really felt that life was “nothing but drudgery, an endless list of dreary duties,” one would hope they might “say, in effect, ‘I have somehow missed the chance to put much joy and meaning into my own life; please educate my children so that they will do better.’”23 Is our primary goal to help kids take delight in learning, or is it to train them to do what they’re told, even if (or especially if) those things are unpleasant?

  Perhaps the “take your medicine” (or mouthwash) stance is really a way of saying, “Oh, stop complaining, it’s not that bad.” Some adults may be eager to prescribe “character building” frustrations to children based on what they remember about, or generalize from, their own childhoods. “Hey, I got zeroes, I missed out on the trophy plenty of times—and I turned out just fine!” And that may be true. On the other hand, the speaker may be (1) incorrectly assuming that his or her own experiences set the boundary for how bad things can be, (2) remembering past events as somewhat more benign than they actually were, (3) underestimating the impact of those events by assessing his or her own psychological health a bit optimistically (since a defensive insistence that one “turned out just fine” can’t always be taken at face value), or (4) misunderstanding causal connections. Even if someone really is flourishing in adulthood despite childhood challenges, luck may have played a prominent role in that outcome. In that case, it would be foolish, if not callous, to decree that all children should have to contend with similar challenges.

  Regardless of the experiences that might be found among certain individuals, though, to endorse BGUTI is a way of saying to a child, “Your objections don’t count. Your unhappiness doesn’t matter. Suck it up.” (This attitude is made strikingly explicit with posters and buttons that feature a diagonal red slash through the word whining.)24 People who adopt this perspective are usually on top, issuing directives, not on the bottom being directed. “Learn to live with it because there’s more coming later” can be rationalized as being in the best interests of those on the receiving end, but it may just mean “Do it because I said so.” It functions as a tool to ensure compliance, which has the effect of cementing the power of those offering this advice.

  Retention in Grade

  One example of this attitude about deprivation involves literal failure—in a school setting. Over the last few decades, education researchers have discovered that just about the worst possible response when children are struggling academically is to flunk them and make them repeat a grade. Doing so has destructive effects on students’ subsequent academic performance, on their self-confidence, and on the likelihood that they will eventually graduate. (The experience of having been held back a year is an even stronger predictor of dropping out than is socioeconomic status.25)

  Despite those disturbing findings, the practice of making children repeat a grade has grown in popularity “during the very time period that research has revealed its negative effects on those retained,” as one scholar observed.26 Retention is widely endorsed and employed not because it helps children—it clearly does not—but for ideological reasons. The argument seems to be that kids should be held back because they haven’t earned the right to move on to the next grade level. If they haven’t paid their dues, then allowing them to move on constitutes “social promotion.” Traditionalists have successfully reframed the discussion so the question isn’t “What’s best for students?” (which often involves promotion with extra support) but “How can we make sure students don’t get anything to which they’re not entitled?”

  In 2004, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg decreed not only that underperforming third graders would be held back but also that their performance would be determined by a standardized test. (He did so after abruptly firing and replacing three members of the city’s Panel for Educational Policy who disagreed with him on the issue.) “Bravo!” read one letter to the editor. “Eight years old is a perfect age to learn a rule of life: You have to earn your rewards, not count on free rides.” And another: Social promotion “eats away at the moral fabric of our society by imbuing the young with a false sense of entitlement. Imagine their chagrin when on entering the work force, they realize that they must actually put nose to the grindstone to achieve success. That is, if achieving success is even a concept with which they have been made familiar after years of social promotion.”27

  PRESERVING THE STATUS QUO

  When someone says that raising or educating children in a specific way will have a specific effect (for example, “If they don’t have to struggle, they’ll grow up feeling entitled”), it’s sometimes possible to test that prediction with research. But shoulds—the subject of this chapter—are trickier to challenge than wills. The best we can do is press for clarification, shine a light on hidden assumptions, and tease out som
e of the moral and practical implications of a position. We can ask: Does it really make sense to demand that children earn everything they get, or is that an unnecessarily sour and stressful way to live? Should they have to strive against others, or is cooperation generally preferable (so that those they meet are more likely to be potential allies than rivals)? Is the prospect of a “feel-good” childhood really so worrisome that we need to contrive unpleasant and frustrating experiences for our kids?

  In the introduction to this book, I mentioned George Lakoff’s thesis that conservative views on a range of political issues are linked to what he calls a Strict Father model. That model emerges from a conviction that life is difficult and survival demands competition, self-reliance, and the enforcement of (and obedience to) strict rules. From this perspective, “nurturance is not unconditional,” says Lakoff. “It must serve the function of authority, strength, and discipline.” To get people to do what they would rather not, it’s critical to offer rewards for obedience and punishment for disobedience, the hope being that this will strengthen people’s willpower and self-reliance. Consistent with the last of these, “Mature children are on their own and parents are not to meddle.” And consistent with the carrot-and-stick approach to socialization, “Rewards given to those who have not earned them through competition are immoral. They violate the entire system . . . and they remove the need for obedience to authority.” Similarly, “If competition were removed, self-discipline would cease. . . . Competition therefore is moral.”28

  Lakoff’s Strict Father model captures what I’ve been describing as a traditionalist worldview. It efficiently ties together the strong condemnation of permissiveness and helicopter parenting, the demands for stricter limits and punitive consequences for children, and the furious reaction to any arrangement that might soften the impact of competitive struggle or allow trophies, A’s, or praise to be given out too readily. Lakoff shows how these positions are all facets of a single whole. And it is a moral whole, which explains why the attachment to these beliefs is not easily shaken by research concerning the practical effects of acting on them.

  Whether this moral vision can be described as “conservative” is debatable. But that word does seem to apply in at least one respect: The effect of these positions is literally to conserve our current practices and institutions by discouraging us from critically analyzing them. Whether or not the premises of the argument are conservative, the implications surely are.

  Consider: If the question is whether parents are too involved with their children’s homework, then the question isn’t whether the homework itself is worth doing—let alone why children should have to work what amounts to a second shift after having spent all day in school. If the question is whether we’re praising kids too easily or often, then the question isn’t whether praise, per se, is problematic because it functions as a way of controlling kids. If teachers are ridiculed for trying to correct students’ assignments a little more gently, steering clear of large red X’s,29 then it’s less likely that we’d ever examine the limitations of the bigger pedagogical picture: an approach to teaching and evaluation that consists of making kids cram forgettable facts into short-term memory and then spit out those facts on a test. Denunciations of grade inflation deflect our attention from the harm done by grading itself. Outrage over participation trophies means we’re much less likely to explore the broader effects of competition. And so on.

  What about BGUTI? Well, here’s where conservatism is right out on the surface. “Better get used to it” assumes not only that life is unpleasant, but that nothing can be done about what makes it that way. It’s just how things are. And because nothing can be done, nothing should be done. There’s no point in working to improve our schools or workplaces; all kids can do is prepare to deal with reality. Our job is to get them ready. When an entire generation comes to regard rewards and punishments, or rating and ranking, as “just the way life works” rather than as practices that happen to define our society at this moment in history, their critical sensibilities are stillborn. Debatable policies are never debated. BGUTI becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  In Chapter 4, I suggested that people are better able to cope with challenging circumstances if they were nurtured and supported as children. It’s success that prepares one to handle failure; it’s unconditional acceptance that allows one to deal with subsequent rejection. But that doesn’t mean children raised this way will just put up with disrespectful treatment, coercion, or competition. Indeed, they may be deeply disturbed by these things and committed to bringing about changes—a process in which we can and should support them, as I’ll argue at the end of the book. But this is less likely to happen when children are treated more roughly, marinated in traditional values and practices, manipulated with bribes and threats from the beginning so it never occurs to them that things could be otherwise. BGUTI is a recipe for docility. It doesn’t help kids deal with unpleasant stuff; it just makes it more likely that unpleasant stuff will be around indefinitely.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Attack on Self-Esteem

  A new idea is hatched; it catches on; it begins to spread; it inspires a flurry of books and articles, conferences and seminars. And then it fades away. The cycle is common in many fields, but I’m most familiar with how it plays out in education, where the last couple of decades have witnessed a sudden (albeit fleeting) excitement about “outcome-based” and then “brain-based” schooling, about Total Quality Management, multiple intelligences, the “flipped” classroom, and several other hot developments, each of which cooled and was supplanted by the next big thing.

  In the 1980s and ’90s, self-esteem took its turn in the procession, with that phrase becoming a rallying cry for many American educators. Trying to improve children’s perceptions of their own worth was described as a crucial contributor to how they fared academically and socially. The tipping point came in 1990 with the much-publicized release of a state-funded task force report in California. School-based programs to raise students’ self-esteem began to sprout up across the country. State and local councils devoted to the cause were formed, newsletters circulated, and classroom curricula disseminated.

  The quality of these efforts varied widely; they included carefully planned intervention programs as well as silly rituals in which kids were surrounded by cheerfully reassuring posters and made to chant “I’m special!” Some proponents regarded self-esteem not merely as important but as a cure-all—a “social vaccine” against crime and violence, substance abuse, and other cultural diseases—even though a scholarly monograph commissioned by the California task force failed, rather embarrassingly, to find much data to justify this enthusiasm.1

  At some point in the 1990s educators began drifting off to other projects. But the effort did leave one enduring legacy. It didn’t have to do with any of the publications or programs dedicated to supporting self-esteem, though—it was the critical backlash that had sprung up. No sooner did educators express an interest in trying to help kids feel better about themselves than the attacks began. A number of these articles, not surprisingly, were written by conservative thinkers,2 but, as with so many other aspects of parenting and education, their response was mirrored in mainstream media outlets. Hence “The Trouble with Self-Esteem” in US News & World Report (1990), “Hey, I’m Terrific” in Newsweek (1992), “Down from the Self-Esteem High” in the New York Times (1993), “A Full Head of Esteem” in the Washington Post (1995), “Self-Esteem Self-Defeating?” in the Boston Globe (1996), and many more along the same lines.

  By now the councils and newsletters and classroom exercises devoted to boosting self-esteem are few and far between. Yet the furious denunciations have continued: Another article called “The Trouble with Self-Esteem,” this one in the New York Times Magazine; “The Self-Esteem Hoax” in the Christian Science Monitor; and “Self-Esteem: Why We Need Less of It” in Time all appeared in 2002. Then, too, there are the criticisms in books, from The Myth of Self-Esteem (1
998) to The Self-Esteem Trap (2009); in Doonesbury; in best sellers about children such as NurtureShock; and in a steady stream of blog posts, newspaper columns, and discipline manuals. Like someone still shrieking about the threat of Communism, the attack continues long after its target has largely faded away.

  The idea that kids should be helped to regard themselves more favorably continues to arouse such disproportionate contempt—the phrase “using a howitzer to kill a butterfly” comes to mind—that one imagines a psychoanalyst rubbing his chin thoughtfully and musing about the critics’ unconscious motives. Having combed through major American newspapers, newsweeklies, and general-interest magazines, I’ve been unable to find a single article on the topic that doesn’t take this negative view. Granted, there are plenty of self-help books about building self-esteem, but in mainstream periodicals, any time you see that phrase (at least in the context of kids), you can count on its being preceded by the adjective “inflated” or accompanied by a warning about “narcissism.” Indeed, the arguments and rhetoric are so similar from one article or book to the next that you may find yourself wondering if a single person wrote all of them. And yet, just as with polemics about overparenting or the benefits of failure, many of these attacks on self-esteem are delivered in a tone of self-congratulation, as if it took extraordinary gumption to say pretty much what everyone else is saying.