Rita Panahi:
Now, educational psychologist Clare Rowe has penned a piece in the News Corp papers this morning that has got parents talking. This piece has caused a lot of debate, with Clare encouraging parents to stop extravagant, unearned praise of their children. She says parents are confusing confidence with competence.
And she writes, “When did it become so unacceptable to be honest with children about what they’re good at and what they’re not? Somewhere along the way, we seem to have decided that encouragement means telling children they’re good at everything.” Clare Rowe joins me now. Clare, I love this piece. I’d argue having a generation of kids with big but fragile egos is going to cause all sorts of problems.
Clare Rowe:
Hi, Rita. Thank you. Yeah, well, I think it already has. I think it has with young people entering the workforce out of university, thinking they know it all with little or no experience. I think there’s a difference between confidence and ego because there is healthy confidence, but that’s built on competence, right. It’s built on having tackled things and making mistakes and realising that life goes on. But ego is really different.
And I think that that’s what I’m commenting on because that’s based on external validation. And in my column, I recall as a young psychologist watching this mother just tell their young child that they were the best drawer in the world and everything they drew was fantastic. This kid’s drawing was not very good. He had really delayed motor skills, but he was great at soccer. He was great on a soccer pitch, right.
So I just kind of thought to myself, when do we stop being able to just acknowledge that kids have strengths and weaknesses? And what’s going to happen if we tell kids they’re exceptional at everything? I mean, the first thing is I think they’ll stop trying. I mean, if you’re the best at everything to start off with, well, you’re the best. And where is the motivation to put in the hard work to get any better?
Rita Panahi:
Well, you’ve got that issue, but you’ve also got them being exposed to the real world without any resilience because parents are so scared to say no to their child, to offer any sort of criticism. So they don’t build that resilience. And you can’t manufacture resilience, can you, Clare? You need to have it built up. So when you are in the big wide world by yourself, you can withstand someone being critical of you or demanding something that perhaps puts you out of your comfort zone.
Clare Rowe:
Yeah, that’s exactly right. Resilience is not something that we can hand kids overnight with our words. It’s something that they have to develop, as you said, by experience. And every time a child solves a problem on their own or hears no or experiences disappointment and they have to persevere and they have to bounce back. It’s a muscle that they’re building. And I think parents, I get it, parents want to naturally protect their children from discomfort. But like most things in the world, we have swung so far the other way.
Discomfort is actually developmentally really, really important. It’s how children learn difficult feelings are temporary. And I always say to parents in my office, “You’ve got 18 years to turn out a fully functioning adult in the world, right.” And they come to me, and the kid’s nine or 10. You’re over halfway through. Time’s ticking. As humans, we spend a lot longer raising our young than any other species. You’ve got 18 years, and it’s not to give them and prepare them for childhood. It’s to prepare them for adulthood.
Rita Panahi:
And we’ve got this in the schools. It’s not just in the home. In the schools, you’ve got participation awards. Everyone gets a ribbon for just being there. And we’ve got this cotton-wool generation that really doesn’t hear no too often. I’ve heard arguments that that leads to more bullying. Instead of actually making the kids a little bit softer and more tolerant of others, it makes them into little monsters in some circumstances.
Clare Rowe:
Yeah. Well, I think, I mean, everyone these days talks about that participation award culture. I think maybe the intention was a good one. We want children to feel included, but also children aren’t stupid. They know which team won or who was the fastest or who gave the strongest performance.
They don’t need adults to pretend that everyone achieved exactly the same outcome. So yeah, absolutely. And I think at the end of the day, then we’ve got kids who are really poorly equipped to be able to cope to say, “I gave it my best shot,” which, of course, this is what we should praise.
And, “You gave it your best shot. You’re not a great runner, but that’s okay. We can keep practising , but someone else won, and let’s celebrate them.” So inclusion and participation acknowledgement, great, but not that everyone wins and everyone achieved the same because that’s not reality and kids know that.
Rita Panahi:
Clare Rowe, always love your insights. Thanks for your time tonight.
