The "Sissifying" of America...

What's the point of winning if everybody gets one of these.

I'm seriously starting to think that you people don't understand the psychology of developing brains.

i disagree.

and my kid is awesome.

the only way you become a winner is to not let the failures beat you down and keep trying. What is the saying? Edison didn't fail 500 times, he found 500 ways to not make a lightbulb work.

And had he been sufficiently rewarded for those 500 failures, he might never have found the need to go on to find the one success.

BS. What you guys are talking about is about giving kids posivibes even when they don't win like it's some crime against humanity. My son always gets told he did good even when he fails because i'm not gonna emotionally abuse him for not being the best at everything. Trying, and continuing to try, is what matters.

Nobody is talking about belittling your kids or calling them names, or physically beating them for not winning...

The approach that should be taken is taking them aside, explaining way in which they might be able to get better, and HELP them achieve that. If they STILL suck at the task, you find ways to foster their strengths.

Growing up I was an uncoordinated mess, couldn't play sports well that involved a ball, couldn't catch, etc. But I could run FAST. I was directed by teachers towards track. By the 6th grade I was running 100m dash at about 12 seconds, I was good at it, I was by far the fastest on the team, it was something that I excelled at. An injury later in the season (tore the ligaments in my shins/calves) knocked me out of track pretty much forever. I found something else I was great at...computers. I learned all I could and enjoyed it, it's what I do for a living now. I grew out of my other uncoordinated issues and became quite athletic in high school, but still to this day fail at other things that I've never been great at, like basketball...I just do something else that I am good at.

You learn your own strengths and limitations through winning and loosing, nothing wrong with it and, like others have said, suffering builds character, don't we all want our children to grow up with good character?

i disagree.

and my kid is awesome.

the only way you become a winner is to not let the failures beat you down and keep trying. What is the saying? Edison didn't fail 500 times, he found 500 ways to not make a lightbulb work.

And had he been sufficiently rewarded for those 500 failures, he might never have found the need to go on to find the one success.

BS. What you guys are talking about is about giving kids posivibes even when they don't win like it's some crime against humanity. My son always gets told he did good even when he fails because i'm not gonna emotionally abuse him for not being the best at everything. Trying, and continuing to try, is what matters.

I think you might be missing the point a little. Being told you're a failure is much different than being allowed to fail.

Maybe I am.

It's the part where the principle gave everyone a ribbon and told them they all were winners that I'm focusing on. Whatever it was, i'm sure every kid knows who "won" and who "lost" but there is benefits to being positive about plugging ahead even when you aren't on top. Even with things like marathons- hell, I consider myself a winner for finishing the goddamned thing!

I'm also focusing on all the talk about t-ball. The point of t-ball isn't to be competitive, it's to learn how to work as a team and how to play the game. I LOVED that they didn't keep score and no kid got beat up becuase his dad was absent and his mom worked all the time and so he wasn't at the same level as coaches three boys or whatever.

I'm not saying hand them a silver platter and free keys to the car and let them do whatever. But i'm not into the "LET KIDS FAIL" and calling them losers.

I don't think anyone in this thread said they would call their kid "losers".

Nobody is saying you should go home and yell/berate your child. They're saying it's important that children experience what it's like to fail or even do something poorly.

It's so they can learn how to cope with failure/disappointment/ya know the negative stuff that comes with events throughout our lives.

I completely understand your point of view. In fact, when I first read this I whole-heartedly agreed with all of your claims. However, I started thinking about my own childhood experiences in school and I started to understand the other side. I was bullied...profusely by my peers, and I think that if my teachers spent a little more time encouraging me, perhaps I'd have a little more self-esteem? I don't know? Maybe. Of course, I'm an adult now and I'm in charge of building/owning myself but when I was young I didn't understand all of the negativity towards me. It was really hard to get through.

Not sure if it's been said already but the same applies to giving every kid a #1 bib at a kids' dash.

Only the winner wins. The others lose (or "defer success" lol).

Of course, without losers, there really are no winners.

HALLELUJAH!!! And, thank you for being a MAN! I couldn't agree more!

OP, I honestly agree. I'm only 22 but back when I was in school we had a lot of competitions and you actually had to work to earn yourself points or whatever. Each year we had something to encourage kids to read more and your grade would display the top 10 scores and how many books they read. I got my insane reading speed from that because each year I was neck and neck with a Middle Eastern boy, same with most academics and most times he won. I didn't get things for second place but I didn't cry, I was just more determined for next year. (and this is mean but I had an anxiety attack one year during state testing and didn't want to puke on the test so I turned my head and happened to puke on him, small victory)

My high schools were the same. I know my second high school I worked my butt off and earned not only a 4.0 GPA the two years I was there, but for being one of the hardest working and intelligent students I was first pick for any field trips which, when your school's sponsored by Exxon Mobile, there are a lot of. Even in my first high school when our band played competitions, if we lost that was it. We didn't get trophies or pizza parties anyway, our band director rode our *kitten* until we improved.

From my understanding of the whole thing, it's the generation of coddling parents that have come in and said "you can't tell my child they aren't special, that they're losers because it makes them sad and sad produces drug addicts/prostitutes/whatever." So schools pull out the win/lose and kids, depending on the school, don't really get a dose of what it's like to not always get to the other end of the rainbow until adulthood.

AMEN BROTHER!!!!!


We've raised a generation of sissies and we're going to have to pay for it.

When I have to wake up at 4 am to go on a call for someone with a sore knee that just HAD to be checked out even though it's been a month since it started hurting I just want to slap that person.

When I have to leave my lunch to go on a call to attend to someone who has a mild fever I just want to cry for our society.

When I have to interrupt my workout or leave my meal to get cold because someone has a sore back and thinks that by calling 911 they'll be seen faster at the ER I just want to yell at them "MAN THE $&#*& UP!!!!"

I'm not a swearing man but some people......!!!!!!

And what are these kids going to do when they hit the real world and realize that someone is going to hold them accountable for their failures and short comings? I've had to straighten out more than one rookie already. You're Mom doesn't #*$UO#OU ing work here. It's your job to scrub that friggin toilet. We all had our turn, now it's your turn you big sissy.

"It's not a graduation. He's moving from the 4th grade to the 5th grade. It's psychotic! They keep inventing new ways to celebrate mediocrity..."

I agree with you!!!

I think the only real solution is... "Thunderdome!"

2 kids enter.. 1 kid leaves....

And I also think that this should not be focused primarily on the younger generation. Don't get me wrong, I can't stand my peers, most of them are incredibly obnoxious, but it's the entire American atmosphere. There are a bunch of you that have moved beyond "people need to learn how to lose" to just berating and condemning kids, as though other generations are incapable of not being hypersensitive or self-righteous.

So while I agree, remember that, before you judge, most of you are fat for this exact same reason. I reiterate my statement *again* that most of the younger generation has a seriously enlarged sense of self-worth and shows that in many, many facets of their lives, but if you are a fat adult you are a fat adult because - at least before you started to get serious - you were a wuss about really accepting what you saw in the mirror, and your (and my, all of ours, lying to protect feelings is an American norm now) friends and family said "you looked fine", which turned you into a psychological sissy.

Not saying I'm not an adult myself, just relatively new to the term - in a lot of ways I feel like I'm still subjected to childish stereotypes because of my age.

I think the only real solution is... "Thunderdome!"

2 kids enter.. 1 kid leaves....

loser gets a blue ribbon pinned directly to their chest?

And I also think that this should not be focused primarily on the younger generation. Don't get me wrong, I can't stand my peers, most of them are incredibly obnoxious, but it's the entire American atmosphere. There are a bunch of you that have moved beyond "people need to learn how to lose" to just berating and condemning kids, as though other generations are incapable of not being hypersensitive or self-righteous.

So while I agree, remember that, before you judge, most of you are fat for this exact same reason. I reiterate my statement *again* that most of the younger generation has a seriously enlarged sense of self-worth and shows that in many, many facets of their lives, but if you are a fat adult you are a fat adult because - at least before you started to get serious - you were a wuss about really accepting what you saw in the mirror, and your (and my, all of ours, lying to protect feelings is an American norm now) friends and family said "you looked fine", which turned you into a psychological sissy.

Not saying I'm not an adult myself, just relatively new to the term - in a lot of ways I feel like I'm still subjected to childish stereotypes because of my age.

Heh. There you go. I never looked in the mirror and said: I look fine, although many people tried to tell me I did. I knew I was overweight and getting fatter.

It's possible to KNOW you're disgustingly unhealthy and yet continue in bad habits you know?

But thankfully because I was taught the value of losing and the drive of wanting to win I am now capable of working my *kitten* off to lose this weight. Unlike others who are looking for pills and quick easy fixes so they continue to not have to own up to their failure.

The crazy thing is that this is supposed to 'help' them, but it leaves them totally unprepared for real life.

They spend their school years constantly being told that they're great, amazing, unique etc and then they enter the world of work with a massively overdeveloped ego and often a correspondingly massive overestimation of their own worth.

I'm sure anyone who has ever interviewed young people as part of a recruitment process knows exactly what that's like. :grumble:

I work in college recruiting for a fortune 500. I talk to college students and recent grads for 90% of my day. Hiring and managing the Millennial attitude (I like to call them the Self Esteem Generation) is a huge HR initiative for us. The "real world" is changing to meet them, for better or worse.

"why, whatever do you mean, i don't get a corner office with a view and a 6-figure salary my first year out of college?"

un. friggin. real.