The Myth of the Spoiled Child

by Alfie Kohn

  Consider the locker room bromides (about how a quitter never wins and a winner never quits) that are barked at athletes before they attempt to defeat another group of athletes whose coach has told them the same thing. Or the speeches at expensive business luncheons that remind us there’s no such thing as a free lunch—and sermonize about the virtue of initiative and self-sufficiency. Or the posters in which inspirational slogans, superimposed on photos of sunsets and mountains, exhort workers or students to “Reach for the stars” and assure them “You can if you think you can!”

  Some of us regard all of this with a mixture of queasiness, dismay, and amusement. (This reaction is sometimes expressed satirically, with examples ranging from Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt a century ago to a recent series of parody posters called Demotivators.89) We read yet another paean to grit, or hear children being pushed to work hard no matter how dull or difficult the task, and our first reaction is to wonder who the hell benefits from this. We may notice that inspirational posters and training in the deferral of gratification seem to be employed with particular intensity in inner-city schools.90 Jonathan Kozol pointed out the political implications of making poor African American students chant, “Yes, I can! I know I can!” or “If it is to be, it’s up to me.” Such slogans are very popular with affluent white people, he noticed, maybe because “if it’s up to ‘them’ . . . it isn’t up to ‘us,’ which appears to sweep the deck of many pressing and potentially disruptive and expensive obligations we may otherwise believe our nation needs to contemplate.”91

  Matthew Lieberman, a neuroscientist at UCLA, speculates that “self-control may support society’s interests more than our own.”92 That divergence is worth taking a moment to consider. If “society” meant “other people,” then we might infer a moral obligation to regulate our impulses in the hope that everyone else would benefit. But what if the advantages flow not so much out as up, less to others in general than to those in positions of power? Overcontrolled individuals may lead lives of quiet desperation, but they probably won’t make trouble. That’s why the social scientists who came up with the creepy phrase that opened this chapter—“equipping the child with a built-in supervisor”—went on to point out that this arrangement is useful for creating “a self-controlled—not just controlled—citizenry and work force.”93 That doesn’t help your neighbor or your colleague any more than it helps you, but it’s extremely convenient for whoever owns your company.

  The priority given to conformity is easy to observe when the morning bell rings for school. To an empathic educator like the late Ted Sizer, the routine to which kids are subjected is damn near intolerable. Try following a high school student around for a full day, he urged, in case you’ve forgotten what it’s like

  to change subjects abruptly every hour, to be talked at incessantly, to be asked to sit still for long periods, to be endlessly tested and measured against others, to be moved around in cohorts by people who really do not know who you are, to be denied any civility like a coffee break and asked to eat lunch in twenty-three minutes, to be rarely trusted, and to repeat the same regimen with virtually no variation for week after week, year after year.94

  His understanding of how things look from the students’ point of view informed Sizer’s lifelong efforts to change the structure of American education. Now compare that perspective to those of experts whose first, and often only, question about the status quo is: How do we get kids to put up with it? For Duckworth, the challenge is how to make students pay “attention to a teacher rather than daydreaming,” persist “on long-term assignments despite boredom and frustration,” choose “homework over TV,” and “behav[e] properly in class”?95 In her more recent research, she created a task that is deliberately boring, the point being to come up with strategies that will lead students to resist the temptation to do something more interesting instead.96 Again, cui bono?

  Given these priorities, it makes perfect sense that Duckworth would turn to grades as evidence that grit is beneficial—not only because she assumes grades offer an accurate summary of learning but because “grades can motivate students to comply with teacher directives.”97 They are, in other words, useful as rewards or threats. Are the teacher’s directives reasonable or constructive? Same answer as to the question of whether the homework assignments are worth doing: It doesn’t matter. The point is to produce obedience—ideally, habitual obedience.98 This is the mindset that underlies all the enthusiasm about grit and self-discipline, even if it’s rarely spelled out.

  Along the same lines, in an article called “Can Teachers Increase Students’ Self-Control?” (as usual, the question is “can” not “should”), a cognitive psychologist named Daniel Willingham offers as a role model a hypothetical child who looks through his classroom window and sees “construction workers pour[ing] cement for a sidewalk” but “manages to ignore this interesting scene and focus on his work.”99 Again, the question of whether his “work” has any value is never raised. It may be a fill-in-the-blank waste of the time, but the teacher has assigned it, and that means an exemplary student is one who ignores a fascinating real-life lesson in how a sidewalk is created, who refrains from asking the teacher why that lesson can’t be incorporated into the curriculum. He stifles his curiosity, exercises his self-control, and does what he’s told.

  To identify a lack of self-discipline as the central problem with children is to make them conform to a status quo that is left unexamined and therefore probably won’t change. This is conservatism in the word’s purest sense. But it doesn’t describe only those who are trying to sell us grit. It also applies to those who worry about the possibility that children will be spoiled or feel too pleased with themselves. In fact, every chapter of this book could have been subtitled “Cui Bono?” What’s the effect, and who’s the beneficiary, of framing the problem with parenting in terms of lax discipline and insufficient conditionality? BGUTI, meanwhile, is by definition a way of teaching children that the status quo cannot be questioned, only prepared for. Obviously it’s important to ask whether our assumptions about children—what they’re like and how they’re raised—are true, and whether the underlying values are defensible. But it’s also worth asking whose interests they serve. Too often, it’s not those of the kids themselves.

  If we accept the timeworn complaints that parents are too permissive, we’ll be inclined to crack down on kids by imposing tougher punishments, tighter regulations, stricter limits, less trust. If we’re persuaded by accusations of overparenting, we may be tempted to provide less support than children need (in the name of promoting self-sufficiency). If we accept the claim that kids need to experience more failure, more competition, more frustration, more conditions attached to a sense of self-worth—well, none of what follows from this advice is likely to do kids much good. Neither will a regimen of making them discipline themselves to do whatever they’re told and then keep at it.

  What’s more likely to benefit our children—and to improve the society in which they (and we) live—is to turn the traditionalists’ approach on its head. How to do so is the subject of our final chapter.

  CHAPTER 8

  Raising Rebels

  Complaints that kids today are lazy, entitled, and self-centered tend to be accompanied by a pile of prescriptions for how to improve them: Impose clear expectations and firm limits, then hold children “accountable” (in other words, punish them if they disobey); push them toward self-sufficiency; insist that self-worth and positive comments from others must be earned; provide plenty of experiences with competition and failure; promote self-discipline and grit. In essence, children should be well behaved and hard working. They should accommodate themselves to the unforgiving demands of the real world, follow the rules, and do what they’re told.

  Throughout this book I’ve rejected these recommendations, along with the unflattering descriptions of children with which they’re associated. Now, I’d like to question the connection. Why is it so widely assumed that these beliefs
about children, even if they were accurate, lead naturally to those recommendations? Imagine for a moment that there really was good reason to conclude that most young people think too much of themselves or think only about themselves. Why should that prompt calls for a renewed focus on getting them to toe the line? Why, in short, would obedience be the cure for self-absorption or self-centeredness?

  I’d like to propose a different response: Encourage young people to focus on the needs and rights of others, to examine the practices and institutions that get in the way of making everyone’s lives better, to summon the courage to question what one is told and be willing to break the rules sometimes.

  I’m not talking about a knee-jerk opposition to everything, the kind of reactive sensibility that was captured by the Marx Brothers’ lyric “Whatever it is, I’m against it.” Rather, I have in mind a thoughtful skepticism, a reflective rebelliousness, a selective defiance based on principle.1 One should be “critical” in both senses of that word: willing to find fault but also dependent on careful analysis. It’s not “If you say yes, I’ll say no,” but rather “If you say or do something that doesn’t make sense, I’ll ask why—then, if necessary, say no (and suggest that other people do the same).”

  I’m not talking about rudeness: Resistance should be not only reasoned but also respectful. Nor am I talking about arrogance: One should turn a skeptical eye not only on what others are doing but also on one’s own beliefs and actions. Someone with a strong core of unconditional self-esteem has sufficient security to challenge him- or herself and admit mistakes. To be critical only of other people’s ideas is to risk hubris and stagnation; to be critical only of one’s own ideas is to risk timidity and indecision.

  Finally, I’m not talking about cynicism. Instead, I want to promote skepticism, which means one doesn’t automatically accept whatever people in authority say. A willingness to question the way things are paradoxically affirms a vision of the way things ought to be. One may well be offended by the violation of important values (such as honesty, compassion, or fairness) and, as a result, moved to acts of resistance. The cynic, by contrast, remains passive and apolitical, dismissing activism as pointless and believing in nothing but self-interest.2

  It’s been said that the personal is political, and there’s no doubt that parenting is intensely personal. To argue against traditional ways of raising children, or to suggest that we can help children stand up for what they think is right, doesn’t introduce politics into parenting. It’s always been there. If we’ve failed to notice the political implications of child rearing, it may be because most advice on the subject has the effect of perpetuating the status quo. Hence the need to keep asking, “Cui bono?”

  When, for example, a researcher such as Diana Baumrind defends the idea of “moral internalization,” which she defines as “the process by which children come to espouse and conform to society’s rules, even when they are free of external surveillance or the expectation of external inducement,” that’s intensely political.3 The cornerstone of her notion of “authoritative” discipline is the creation of built-in supervisors to ensure conformity. But too many people respond by asking, “What’s the most efficient way to achieve such internalization?” and skirting the question of the value of those rules they’re being asked to internalize. In fact, we should invite our children to join us in asking which rules are worth following, and why.

  Whether we decide to do so will depend on our answer to a different sort of question: What kind of people do we want our children to become? Do we hope they’ll be willing to question the existing order, to be outraged by outrageous things, to demand changes in unfair schools and workplaces? Or is the primary point to get them to conform to whatever exists?

  Almost half a century ago, conservatives blamed a surge in college campus unrest on permissive parenting. My first response (in Chapter 1) was to question the accuracy of that causal link. Another response to their claim, however, might be: “Blamed?!” If there really were a connection, it would constitute a powerful argument in favor of such parenting.4 The political and cultural activism of the 1960s, after all, was defined by efforts to challenge oppressive institutions and restrictive assumptions, to demand equal rights for women and people of color, to oppose war and promote awareness about the environmental costs of economic growth. If a certain approach to parenting really could produce people who devoted themselves to those democratizing struggles, we should be sharing the good news with parents today.

  My argument, in sum, is that the real alternative to narcissistic self-absorption is not mindless obedience but reflective rebelliousness. And even though there is no credible evidence that narcissistic self-absorption is more common in today’s youth than it was in those of previous generations, promoting reflective rebelliousness still seems like a pretty good idea.

  AN EPIDEMIC OF ACQUIESCENCE

  Suppose that a teenager somewhere in Ohio showed up at school yesterday morning in a bathing suit, announcing that he should be free to wear anything he finds comfortable and telling the principal defiantly, “My parents agree with me, and my dad is a lawyer.” It’s safe to predict that this episode would become an instant media sensation. Within hours, bloggers and cable TV pundits would be citing it as an example of what kids these days are like. The primary debate in online forums would pit those who blamed the out-of-control kids against those who blamed their spineless, overindulgent parents.

  But a couple of million students in Ohio didn’t do anything like that yesterday. They dressed in a way that adults deemed acceptable, showed up on time, grew silent on command, sat passively as their teachers lectured at them, obediently pulled out their textbooks and worksheets, and in the evening did pretty much whatever their parents told them to do. True, some kids may have misbehaved or complied only reluctantly and sullenly. But by and large the student in the bathing suit, who will be cited as evidence for a familiar array of generalizations, is an aberration.

  That much is unsurprising. But this hypothetical scenario raises an important question: Is it possible that not everything all those obedient kids were told to do (and did) was really worth doing, that many of the rules they followed weren’t entirely justified? Could it be, in other words, that the proper cause for concern is not our underdressed outlier but all those “good” children who failed to question, think critically, and respond with the appropriate measure of independent thought?

  Most children seem eager, even desperate, to please those in authority, reluctant to rock the boat even when the boat clearly needs rocking. In a way, an occasional roll-your-eyes story of excess in the other direction marks the exception that proves the rule. And the rule is a silent epidemic of obedience. For every kid who is slapped with the label “Oppositional Defiant Disorder,” hundreds suffer from what one educator has mischievously called Compliance Acquiescent Disorder. The symptoms of CAD, he explained, include the following: “defers to authority,” “actively obeys rules,” “fails to argue back,” “knuckles under instead of mobilizing others in support,” and “stays restrained when outrage is warranted.”5

  The joke here, of course, is that these symptoms are widely celebrated as proof of successful socialization. Perhaps that’s because adults, who can think of no higher honorific to bestow on a child than “well behaved,” are themselves reluctant to question and speak out. All around us we find people who sound like Robert Frost’s neighbor, the man who “will not go beyond his father’s saying.” When questioned about one of their habits or beliefs, they’re apt to reply, “Well, that’s just the way I was raised,” as if this ended the conversation, as if it were impossible to critically examine the values to which one has become accustomed.

  This failure to question would be disturbing even if our only goal were to understand the world more accurately. Intellectual progress demands that we refuse to take things at face value or accept everything we’ve been told. It requires us always to entertain the possibility that the conventional wisdom
may be mistaken. Science, as Richard Feynman remarked, might be defined as “the belief in the ignorance of authority”—a statement that could be dismissed as hyperbolic were it not for Feynman’s eminence as a scientist. Incidentally, a key objective J. K. Rowling said she had in mind while writing the Harry Potter series was to encourage her young readers to “question authority.”6

  Of course, that stance is especially crucial if our objective is not only to understand the world but to improve it, if we want not only to find out what is true but to do what is right. Just outside your front door there are social and political realities that fail to meet the most elementary standard of moral acceptability. How, then, can we in good conscience teach our children that things should be accepted as they are—“accepted” in the sense of regarding them as either inevitable or desirable? Rather, we should invite children to analyze the status quo and decide which institutions and traditions may need to be changed. We ought to help them talk back to the world.

  In my experience, most parents sincerely want their children to be assertive, independent thinkers who are unafraid to stand their ground . . . with their peers. When a child demonstrates the identical sort of courage in interactions with them, it’s a different story: At best, it’s a troublesome phase that kids go through; at worst, it’s an example of uncooperative, disrespectful, disobedient, defiant behavior that must be stamped out. The truth is that if we want children to be able to resist peer pressure and grow into principled and brave adults, we have to actively welcome their questioning and being assertive with us. We have to move beyond our need to win arguments and impose our will, beyond our fear that we’ll be seen as weak or permissive if our kids are given leave to challenge us.