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TreasureKY -> RE: Please welcome Sanity to the Center! (3/12/2010 11:50:22 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: rulemylife
Let's expand on that.
What do you see as coddling children and rewarding minimal effort?
They are lovely conservative buzzwords but what do they mean?
For that matter, what constitutes catering to their frailties and encouraging an entitlement attitude?
*sighs* I'd prefer to say let's not.
However, to help illustrate the mindset I'll give an example...
When my oldest son was in second grade, his teacher called me in to discuss a problem she was having in getting him to do his work in class. Asking what methods she had tried, I discovered that she had tried several different ways to "bribe" and cajole him, and the only consequence for his recalcitrance was to have his "card turned". It turned out that each child had been assigned a number and a card with each number was placed on pegs under the blackboard. When a student "misbehaved", his or her card was turned over as "punishment". Of course, to avoid public embarrassment the number assigned to a child was known only to the teacher and the individual child.
My suggestion to the teacher was to use a method that had been very effective for me when I was in second grade and did not complete an assignment required during class time. My teacher gently escorted me and my little desk out into the hallway to finish my work. She was not unkind about it and simply explained that the rest of the class was ready to move on with the lesson. Of course, I was mortified at being separated... and worse, what if the principal were to come by while I was in the hall?!
Needless to say I survived the embarrassment, but the end result was that I learned to avoid bad consequences by doing what was required, when it was required.
My son's teacher was appalled by my suggestion claiming that they could not possible subject any child to such a humiliating punishment. Instead she asked that I find some reward at home to give him for doing what he needed to do. [8|]
I'm sorry, but as I explained to her, life does not work that way. We do not get a gold star from the electric company for paying our bill on time... police officers do not pull us over to praise us for obeying traffic laws... and our employers don't offer us an extra 10 minute break if we show up to work on time.
We do what we need to do because we want to avoid the unpleasant consequences that we'd suffer if we don't. If those consequences aren't unpleasant, it kind of defeats the purpose.
As for catering to frailties and encouraging an entitlement attitude... well, it all falls along the same lines. I didn't waltz out of school expecting to command a six figure income right off the bat. I can't expect to get a promotion or raise at work simply because I showed up every day. My boss isn't going to give me a pass on that report I wrote that was filled with spelling errors simply because I made a good effort to do it.
Unfortunately, I see far too many of the younger generations who truly cannot understand why the real world doesn't work the way it did in school when they got a prize just for playing.
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