The Myth of the Spoiled Child

by Alfie Kohn

  55. Streep and Bernstein, pp. 1, 3, 212.

  56. Miller and Wrosch, p. 773.

  57. Dillard, p. 161.

  58. Smith quoted in Duckworth 2013.

  59. This pathology flourishes in a culture that not only celebrates competitive triumph—succeeding at the price of others’ failure—but valorizes athletes, including children, who persist in competing despite having been hurt, notwithstanding the risk of permanent injury. Call it self-destructive grit. Like the kind that is destructive to others, this desperate need to win is often driven by a particularly deep-seated version of conditional self-esteem. It was captured by Lance Armstrong’s (perhaps unintentionally) revealing phrase “losing equals death.”

  60. Duckworth et al. 2007, studies 4 and 5.

  61. Duckworth et al. 2011, p. 175; and Duckworth et al. 2007, study 6.

  62. Krashen.

  63. Duckworth and Seligman 2005, 2006. Self-discipline was mostly assessed by how the students described themselves, or how their teachers and parents described them, rather than as a function of something they actually did. The sole behavioral measure—making them choose either a dollar today or two dollars in a week—correlated weakly with the other measures and showed the smallest gender difference.

  64. See Kohn 1999a, 1999b.

  65. Hogan and Weiss, p. 148.

  66. Wolfe and Johnson.

  67. In one of their articles, Duckworth and Seligman (2006) maintained that self-discipline “gives girls the edge”: They have more of it than boys and consequently get higher grades. The implication is that girls in our culture are socialized (more successfully than boys) to control their impulses and do what they’re told, to the point that they’re rewarded with higher marks. Is that really cause for celebration?

  68. Lakoff, pp. 68, 165. What is less logical—but surely, by now, unsurprising—is that self-discipline would be embraced just as warmly by liberals and endorsed uncritically in virtually every article on the subject to appear in the popular press.

  69. Tough 2011, p. 85.

  70. The aphorism is really rather silly. As Christopher Hitchens observed, “There are all too many things that could kill you, don’t kill you, and then leave you considerably weaker.” It was popularized in late-twentieth-century America by the movie Conan the Barbarian, which was directed by war enthusiast and self-described “right-wing extremist” John Milius, and also by Watergate burglar-in-chief G. Gordon Liddy.

  71. Duckworth 2011, p. 2639.

  72. McCullough et al.; and Bartkowski et al., respectively.

  73. Brooks 2008.

  74. Baumeister quoted in Milstone. In the same interview, he said that telling children “they are great no matter what they do . . . creates narcissism.” Such children develop a sense of entitlement and “believe they’re good even when they’re not.” As we’ve seen, there isn’t a shred of evidence for these claims.

  75. Goldman, pp. 136, 137, 139. This article was published in 1996, by the way, not 1896.

  76. For example, see Reiner; and Tough 2012. Virtually every article in the popular press about such schools and programs offers an uncritical, even glowing, account of treating children of color this way. Many contain the by now de rigueur reference to the marshmallow studies (relying on widespread misconceptions about them) and to Angela Duckworth’s studies of grit. Such schools—which are extremely popular among affluent education reformers, though rarely for their own children—are typically characterized not only by a boot-camp approach to discipline but also by a highly structured, test-oriented curriculum and a style of teaching focused more on memorizing facts and practicing skills than on understanding ideas. This kind of instruction was aptly described by the late Martin Haberman as “the pedagogy of poverty.”

  77. Herman, p. 46. He goes on to fault Baumeister and a colleague for attributing “the current problems of the United States . . . to a decline in self-control and personal responsibility,” a claim he describes as better suited to “a Republican keynote address” than to an academic monograph.

  78. Mischel et al. 1972, p. 217.

  79. Wikström and Treiber, pp. 243, 251.

  80. Competition: Sherif et al. Prison: See www.prisonexp.org for details of Philip Zimbardo’s classic Stanford Prison Experiment. Cheating: Character Education Inquiry, Book 1, p. 400.

  81. In a national survey of Americans’ beliefs about the causes of economic inequality, the only three items thought to be “very important” by a majority of respondents all dealt with the individual: lack of money-management skills, lack of effort, and lack of ability on the part of the poor. (This survey was reported in a book by James Kluegel and Eliot Smith that was cited by Berliner and Biddle, pp. 153–54.)

  Regarding obesity: “Unfortunately, behavior changes won’t work on their own without seismic societal shifts, health experts say, because eating too much and exercising too little are merely symptoms of a much larger malady. The real problem is a landscape littered with inexpensive fast-food meals; saturation advertising for fatty, sugary products; inner cities that lack supermarkets; and unhealthy, high-stress workplaces. . . . ‘If you take a changed person and put them in the same environment, they are going to go back to the old behaviors,’ says Dr. [Dee W.] Edington . . . director of the Health Management Research Center at the University of Michigan” (Singer).

  82. Gillies.

  83. See, for example, CBS News.

  84. See Rogers.

  85. Gottfredson and Hirschi. Quotation appears on p. xvi. For a critique of this theory, see the essay by Gilbert Geis and other chapters in Goode.

  86. Brooks 2006.

  87. Tough 2012, p. 195.

  88. If we look at financial assets rather than total assets, the top 1 percent owns more than nine times what the bottom 80 percent owns. And these disparities have been widening rather than narrowing over the last three decades (Domhoff). Moreover, “America is not only less equal, but also less mobile”: Children born at the bottom in this country are more likely to stay there than are children in other industrialized countries (DeParle).

  89. One of these posters features a dramatic image of the pyramids along with this caption: “ACHIEVEMENT—You can do anything you set your mind to when you have vision, determination, and an endless supply of expendable labor.” Another depicts a packet of fast-food French fries; it says, “POTENTIAL—Not everyone gets to be an astronaut when they grow up.” On a third poster, a leaping salmon is about to wind up in the jaws of a bear: “AMBITION—The journey of a thousand miles sometimes ends very, very badly.” For more, see www.despair.com. If you find these offensive rather than funny, the chances are you haven’t liked this book.

  90. Of course it’s understandable that we’d want to do something about the fact that something like a million American students leave high school every year without graduating—and the dropout rate is substantially higher for African American and Latino students. But do we address the structural features of school that students understandably find alienating, or do we just tell kids to put up with school as it’s currently configured because they’ll earn more money if they stick it out? If we can’t give kids a better reason to stay in school than financial gain, if we reduce education to nothing more than a tedious prerequisite to collecting a credential, then we’ve essentially conceded school’s lack of intrinsic value. In a practical sense, moreover, researchers find that “highlighting the monetary benefits that education can bring . . . could very well discourage youths from fully engaging with learning” (Ku et al., p. 84).

  91. Kozol, p. 35. It would be interesting to see the results of a research study that counted the number of positive-thinking materials and self-control training sessions at a school, and then assessed certain other features of that school. My hypothesis: The popularity of inspirational slogans, grit workshops, and the like will be correlated with a lower probability that students are invited to play a meaningful role in decision-making, as well as less evidence of an emphasis on criti
cal thinking threaded through the curriculum and a less welcoming attitude toward questioning authority.

  92. Lieberman.

  93. Bowles and Gintis, p. 39.

  94. Sizer, p. xi.

  95. The first three quotes are from Duckworth and Seligman 2006, p. 199; the last is from Duckworth et al. 2012, p. 441. Notice that the emphasis in that last phrase is on observable behavior rather than the needs and motives that define the child’s experience of the situation. Notice, too, that the child has no role in defining what constitutes “proper” behavior.

  96. Hartnett, p. 63. See also the example offered on pp. 87–88.

  97. Duckworth et al. 2012, p. 448.

  98. Duckworth contends that “habit and character are essentially the same thing” (quoted in Tough 2012, p. 94). This is an odd equation because many habits obviously have nothing to do with character. But is it even true that most of what we’d call character could be described as habit—which by definition means behaviors that are performed automatically, without reflection?

  99. Willingham, p. 23.

  CHAPTER 8

  1. The concept of autonomy, too, can be conceived as either “reflective” or “reactive.” See Koestner and Losier.

  2. In profiling several courageous resisters, the writer Eyal Press noted that none fit the profile of “iconoclasts who don’t share the moral code to which most of their fellow citizens subscribe [or] who delight in thumbing their noses at whatever authority figure will pay them mind.” Rather, his resisters regarded as “inviolable” “the values and ideals of the societies they lived in or the organizations they belonged to.” They weren’t cynical and they weren’t absolute individualists. It’s precisely because they accepted important values espoused by the countries or groups of which they were part that they refused to go along when people in those groups violated those principles (Press, p. 180).

  3. Baumrind 1996, p. 408. Similarly, Roy Baumeister and his colleagues assert that “an optimal fit between self and environment . . . can be substantially improved by altering the self to fit the world” (Tangney et al., p. 272). For “world,” read “this society” or even “this school (or workplace).”

  4. The decision to engage in political activism as a young adult may indeed be influenced by how one was raised, as we’ll see on page 189, but it doesn’t seem to result from permissive parenting.

  5. Diamond. His parody was a response to a newspaper ad that listed the symptoms of ODD (“argues with adults,” “actively defies rules”) and invited parents who thought they had such children to allow them to be given an experimental medication.

  6. Jordan.

  7. Math teacher: Bohl, p. 23. College student: quoted in Marano, p. 245.

  8. Schemo.

  9. Slouka, p. 11.

  10. See Kohn 2005a, pp. 6, 54, and 222n6.

  11. Dix et al.; quotation on p. 1218. For another caution about “the compulsively compliant child,” see Block, p. 195.

  12. Quenqua. Details about the incident were also drawn from these two accounts: http://ow.ly/oQdGJ and http://ow.ly/oQdCE.

  13. Meier, p. 4; Bensman, p. 62.

  14. “Moral rebels . . . may think that they are only taking a stand against the status quo, but bystanders who did not take that stand can take this rebellion as a personal threat. This suggests that the root of resentment may be that the rebel’s choice implicitly condemns the perceiver’s own behavior” and in effect “threatens the positive self-image of individuals who did not rebel” (Monin et al., pp. 76–77).

  15. Bernstein.

  16. See Kohn 1990 and, for a brief summary, Kohn 2005a, chapter 10.

  17. Various research findings on this point are reviewed in Kohn 1990, Chapter 3.

  18. I’ve written about this distinction in an article called “The Limits of Teaching Skills” (Kohn 1997b).

  19. Block et al.

  20. See p. 72.

  21. For more on this idea, which was sparked by Marilyn Watson, see Kohn 2005a, pp. 196–97.

  22. Gerbner et al.

  References

  Aamodt, Sandra, and Sam Wang. “Building Self-Control, the American Way.” New York Times, February 19, 2012: SR5.

  Ackerman, Robert A., Edward A. Witt, M. Brent Donnellan, Kali H. Trzesniewski, Richard W. Robins, and Deborah A. Kashy. “What Does the Narcissistic Personality Inventory Really Measure?” Assessment 18 (2011): 67–87.

  Adams, Caralee. “‘Soft Skills’ Seen as Key Element for Higher Ed.” Education Week, November 14, 2012a: 1, 14.

  ———. “K-12 and College Completion Rates Set Record.” Education Week, November 14, 2012b: 4.

  Allen, Scott, and Karl L. Wuensch. “Effects of an Academic Failure Experience on Subsequent Performance on Anagram and Paired-Associate Tasks.” Journal of Genetic Psychology 154 (1993): 53–60.

  Alwin, Duane F. “From Obedience to Autonomy: Changes in Traits Desired in Children, 1924–1978.” Public Opinion Quarterly 52 (1988): 33–52.

  ———. “Changes in Qualities Valued in Children in the United States, 1964 to 1984.” Social Science Research 18 (1989): 195–236.

  ———. “From Childbearing to Childrearing: The Link Between Declines in Fertility and Changes in the Socialization of Children.” Population and Development Review, vol. 22, Supplement: Fertility in the United States, 1996: 176–96.

  Applebome, Peter. “Children Place Low in Adults’ Esteem, a Study Finds.” New York Times, June 26, 1997.

  “Are We Trapped in a Child-Centered World?” Newsweek, November 28, 1960.

  Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen. “Suffering, Selfish, Slackers? Myths and Reality About Emerging Adults.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 36 (2007): 23–29.

  ———. “Storm and Stress Redux: Review of Generation Me.” American Journal of Psychology 121 (2008): 675–82.

  ———. “Oh, Grow Up! Generational Grumbling and the New Life Stage of Emerging Adulthood.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 5 (2010): 89–92.

  Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen, and Elizabeth Fishel. When Will My Grown-Up Kid Grow Up? Loving and Understanding Your Emerging Adult. New York: Workman, 2013.

  Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen, and Joseph Schwab. Poll of Emerging Adults: Thriving, Struggling & Hopeful. Worcester, MA: Clark University, December 2012. Available at www.clarku.edu/clarkpoll.

  Assor, Avi, Yaniv Kanat-Maymon, and Guy Roth. “Parental Conditional Regard: Psychological Costs and Antecedents.” In Human Motivation and Interpersonal Relationships: Theory, Research, and Applications, edited by Netta Weinstein. New York: Springer-Verlag, 2014.

  Assor, Avi, Guy Roth, and Edward L. Deci. “The Emotional Costs of Parents’ Conditional Regard: A Self-Determination Theory Analysis.” Journal of Personality 72 (2004): 47–88.

  Assor, Avi, and Karen Tal. “When Parents’ Affection Depends on Child’s Achievement: Parental Conditional Positive Regard, Self-Aggrandizement, Shame and Coping in Adolescents.” Journal of Adolescence 35 (2012): 249–60.

  Assor, Avi, Maarten Vansteenkiste, and Avi Kaplan. “Identified Versus Introjected Approach and Introjected Avoidance Motivations in School and in Sports: The Limited Benefits of Self-Worth Strivings.” Journal of Educational Psychology 101 (2009): 482–97.

  Astin, Alexander W., Leticia Oseguera, Linda J. Sax, and William S. Korn. The American Freshman: Thirty-Five Year Trends. Los Angeles: UCLA Higher Education Research Institute, 2002.

  Aucoin, Don. “For Some, Helicopter Parenting Delivers Benefits.” Boston Globe, March 3, 2009.

  Aunola, Kaisa, and Jari-Erik Nurmi. “Maternal Affection Moderates the Impact of Psychological Control on a Child’s Mathematical Performance.” Developmental Psychology 40 (2004): 965–78.

  Baldwin, Mark W., and Lisa Sinclair. “Self-Esteem and ‘If . . . Then’ Contingencies of Interpersonal Acceptance.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 71 (1996): 1130–41.

  Barber, Brian K. “Parental Psychological Control: Revisiting a Neglected Construct.” Child Development 67 (1996): 3
296–3319.

  ———, editor. Intrusive Parenting: How Psychological Control Affects Children and Adolescents. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2002.

  Bartkowski, John P., Xiaohe Xu, and Martin L. Levin. “Religion and Child Development.” Social Science Research 37 (2008): 18–36.

  Bauerlein, Mark. “Boredom’s Paradox.” Education Week, August 7, 2013: 31.

  Baumeister, Roy F., Jennifer D. Campbell, Joachim I. Krueger, and Kathleen D. Vohs. “Does High Self-Esteem Cause Better Performance, Interpersonal Success, Happiness, or Healthier Lifestyles?” Psychological Science in the Public Interest 4 (2003): 1–44.

  Baumeister, Roy F., Laura Smart, and Joseph M. Boden. “Relation of Threatened Egoism to Violence and Aggression: The Dark Side of High Self-Esteem.” Psychological Review 103 (1996): 5–33.

  Baumeister, Roy F., Kathleen D. Vohs, and Dianne M. Tice. “The Strength Model of Self-Control.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 16 (2007): 351–55.

  Baumrind, Diana. “Effects of Authoritative Parental Control on Child Behavior.” Child Development 37 (1966): 887–907.

  ———. “Some Thoughts About Childrearing.” In Influences on Human Development, edited by Urie Bronfenbrenner. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden Press, 1972.

  ———. “The Discipline Controversy Revisited.” Family Relations 45 (1996): 405–14.

  ———. “Differentiating between Confrontive and Coercive Kinds of Parental Power-Assertive Disciplinary Practices.” Human Development 55 (2012): 35–51.

  Bean, Philip. Punishment: A Philosophical and Criminological Inquiry. Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1981.

  Beecher, Marguerite, and Willard Beecher. Parents on the Run. New York: Julian Press, 1955.

  Belkin, Lisa. “Let the Kid Be.” New York Times Magazine, May 31, 2009: 19–20.

  ———. “Defining a Successful Parent.” New York Times Motherlode blog, July 19, 2010. Available at: http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/defining-a-successful-parent.

  Bell, Silvia M., and Mary D. Salter Ainsworth. “Infant Crying and Maternal Responsiveness.” Child Development 43 (1972): 1171–90.