I recently started working as a playground monitor at my children's school. I basically patrol the playground for an hour at lunchtime to make sure the kids are being safe and aren't killing each other. At least that's my take on the job. Three other women also work this shift with me, and some of them have very different ideas than me about how to deal with kids. (One of the women told me that the best way to make sure that the kids behave is to become their friend and then they will want to be good because they will love you so much. Yeah, right.) For example, frequently one of the children will come up to me complaining about another child being mean or misbehaving: calling them a name, not playing with them, saying bad words, etc. Some of the other playground monitors deal with these types of issues by stepping in and acting as an intermediary between the two kids to help them work it out. They bring the two kids together, let them both tell their side of what happened, make them apologize and shake hands, etc.
I have a real problem with this approach, and here's why. First of all, what are the chances that either side of the story is either accurate or objective? Do you really think that a kid is going to say, "Why yes, I lost my temper and called him a poo-poo head because I felt that he wasn't playing fairly. I was wrong to do that and I apologize." I don't think so. Most adults aren't even that mature. The two kids are just going to point fingers at each other and swear to their own innocence. Kind of like our politicians. So letting them both tell what happened is a waste of time and energy and chances are you aren't getting any more facts than you started with.
Second, even if you know that some kid called another kid a name or stuck out his tongue at him, who cares? Do we really want to create children that are so helpless and fragile that they can't just shrug their shoulders and walk away from an insult? When they are adults, what are they going to do when they run up against obnoxious, rude and inconsiderate people and there is no one around to make those people be nice and apologize? Well, if you ever watch Judge Judy, you know the answer to that question. They will take them to court in the hopes that someone will make those people "be nice". Or if they are a little more mentally unstable, they will bring a shotgun to work and vent their frustration by shooting their rude coworkers and mean boss, because no one else was doing anything about it.
The best thing we can do for these kids is to teach them that you can't make people be nice, but you can pick and choose who you will associate with. If someone is mean or rude, don't play with them. If someone is leaving you out or won't play with you, find other friends who will. Give kids some power in those situations. Let them know that they have control over their own actions, and therefore over their lives. And at the same time, you will teach them that if they are rude and unkind, others won't want to be around them, either. Kids aren't stupid, and they aren't helpless when it comes to controlling their own behavior. But if we treat them as if they are, they will believe it.
I had one little boy come up to me several times during recess complaining that he didn't have any friends and that no one would play with him. I wasn't exactly sure what he wanted me to do about it, but I suspect that he was hoping that, as the adult in charge, I would corral a group of kids together and make them play with him. Instead, I suggested that he seek out another boy and ask him to play with him, or that he find a group of kids that were doing something that looked fun and join in. He was reluctant and probably a little nervous, but after a few more times of him coming back to me and me repeating the same suggestion, he found a group of kids and joined in their soccer game. All he needed to do was keep at it, and he was successful.
This is a very individualist perspective that isn't encouraged anymore in the public schools. There is a very strong undercurrent of "group-think" that teaches students to rely on others to solve their problems. This worries me. A lot. I see teachers who are trained to constantly mediate and facilitate rather than just teach the subject matter at hand. I see curriculum that pushes the idea that if everyone can't succeed, then no one should. I see children who are good readers put into a lower level reading class so that they can help the students who are having trouble. This is all done under the auspices of teaching our children to be compassionate and caring toward others so that we can create a better society for all. But that isn't what it is really teaching them, and a better society for all isn't the outcome. What it really teaches them is that individual achievement is not only a waste of time, but that it hurts others. It teaches them that they don't have the ability to solve problems and find solutions on their own, but that they need to wait for some authority (like a teacher) to bring everyone together to solve the problem and find a solution. This attitude doesn't just magically disappear as they get older. It carries on into adult life. There was a news story a few years ago about a woman who called 911 because she was at the McDonald's drive-thru window and they were out of a particular item that she ordered. She wanted the police to come down there and make them give it to her. Seriously. We are not talking about basic human or civil rights violations - someone getting beaten or robbed or otherwise victimized. We are talking about a Big Mac! This woman had been taught, somewhere along the line, that if someone isn't doing what she wants, there is some authority out there who should come and make them "play nice".
Another philosophy that worries me is the culture of false self-esteem. That's right. FALSE self-esteem. Is there such a thing? Yes. What I'm referring to is the idea that every achievement is equal. The little-league team that wins the game gets a trophy, but so does the team that loses, because they tried very hard. Everyone gets a trophy, isn't that nice? No. It's horrible. Let me be clear. I think it is vital that we teach our kids that we are all equal as human beings and have equal worth. No one person is worth more than any other person. But what I'm referring to is something completely different. The idea that everything we do is of equal value is not only a patent lie, but it is actually damaging to our children's self-esteem. If you have a kid who works his butt off to get a good grade or do well in a sport or master a musical instrument, and he sees a kid who doesn't put the same time and effort in, and therefore doesn't achieve the same success, but gets rewarded anyway, what does the first kid learn from that? He learns a few things.
First, he learns that all of his hard work was for nothing. If he can get the same reward for doing less or nothing, then what is the point of working hard and getting better? Second, he learns that one thing isn't inherently better than another. That all things are equal, therefore nothing is better than anything else. Values like hard work, goal setting, self-discipline and perseverance don't have any more value than laziness, lack of direction, quitting when things get difficult, etc. Because if they did have more value, they would produce a greater payoff, but clearly, they don't. The third thing that he learns is that nothing really matters more than anything else. How do you make judgements in life about what is important and what isn't if there is no greater value placed on some things than on others? Lastly, they learn to question whether or not they deserve anything. If they are given an award or a trophy or any recognition for anything, is it because they did something to earn it, or is it because some adult doesn't want them to feel bad for being such a loser? And what does this say about the control they have over the outcome of anything in their life? They didn't do anything to get the award, but they got it anyway. There is no cause and effect, therefore there is no way to get certain outcomes with certain actions. Again, kids aren't stupid.
An interesting thing happens when kids reach about 14 years of age. Their brains have developed to a point in which they are capable of the same intellectual levels of thought and reasoning as someone who is 20 or 30 or 40, etc. For all intents and purposes, they have adult brains. And those adult brains start working overtime and questioning everything. Because of their newfound reasoning capabilities, they start recognizing inconsistencies, which leads them to also recognize hypocrisy, particularly in the adults around them. Now, what could be more hypocritical than the adults in your life (parents, teachers, etc.) telling you that it is important to do well in school, stay away from drugs, be responsible, (and whatever other values we want our children to adopt) when their whole life they have been taught, in one way or another, that one thing is just as good as another? That nothing really matters more than anything else, so what's the point? Is it any wonder that we have so many angry teenagers who, despite parents and teachers best efforts, don't seem to care about school, or their future, or anything else that we adults want them to care about? I would be angry and disillusioned too if I felt that nothing that I did mattered in the slightest, that the direction or outcome of my life could not be determined by my own actions and choices. Is that the chaotic and hopeless existence that we want our children to inherit?
Here's an idea. How about we teach our kids the real meaning of self-esteem instead of this perverted psycho-babble crap that the schools have been feeding them(and us) for the past 30 years. How about we teach our kids that if you work hard and keep trying, you will succeed. If you develop patience and perserverence, you will succeed. If you set goals and keep working at it until you achieve them, you will succeed. If you keep making mistakes and learning from them, you will succeed. We teach this by rewarding them for success, by recognizing them for real achievements. And we go into it with the assumption that every child has the ability to succeed and achieve and improve and we expect them to do it. We don't need to make up fake awards so that kids won't feel bad if they don't win. We just need to teach them how to win and let them decide if they want to or not. I can't say this enough: kids aren't stupid, and they aren't helpless. If they don't succeed the first time, they need to know that they have the power to change it the next time around. And WHEN (not if) they succeed, they will feel so good about what they have done that they will want to keep working and trying and become even better than they were before. And it will become a pattern in their life that will mold them into happy, healthy successful people. And because the success and self-confidence that they achieve will be something that they earned, rather than some lame award they got for doing virutally nothing, they will know that they deserve it. And that my friends, is true self-esteem.
