A reflection on "Should we stop telling our kids that they're special?"

I came across a piece by Erika Christakis on Time magazine's website today, entitled, "Should we stop telling our kids that they're special?" In it, Ms. Christakis discusses Mr. David McCollough's recent "you're-not-special, you're-not-exceptional," speech that's lately been in the news. Actually I only heard about the speech yesterday, and thought nothing exceptional about it (no pun intended). With all the talk of unemployed or underemployed college graduates, a world-economy consistently on the brink of disaster, and PhD's living on welfare, it seems plain enough that titles of "exceptional" or "special" do a poor job of describing the situation for many young folks today. Our's is a difficult time, and few have proven "special" enough to avoid feeling some pains.

With that said, I think Ms. Christakis makes a fair point in saying, "It's easy to see the downside of our national cult of self-esteem. But being 'special' has enabled many kids to be their best." The latter point is worth emphasizing, because as we discussed in an earlier post, the cultivation of positive emotions (outside any changes in curriculum) has been shown to improve academic performance. On the other side of things, in another post we discussed a study in which athletics coaches who emphasized results over personal development were more likely to create "ego climates" in which athletes became ego-centric and exhibited a number of "negative developmental outcomes such as negative peer influences and inappropriate adult behavior."

In both cases, an approach emphasizing personal development and growth not only improved performance, but also reduced the incidence of ego-centric behavior, both in the short and long-term. It would seem that influences which positively affect self-esteem tend to lead not to narcissism and so-called "me-generations," but to more favorable performance and developmental outcomes. It's not a sure thing of course, but blatantly telling a person they "aren't special" seems to do little good toward those ends.

 It's no doubt a difficult problem, striking a balance between supporting a person and challenging them too. As in cooking, however, too much of either can spoil the soup.

Happy Tuesday, friends :)