Why Mr. Red Doesn’t Let Charlie Win

How to Land your Kid in Therapy

Is it possible to do too much as a parent?  I believe it is absolutely possible.  Letting your child win every game, get a trophy, or award after every sporting event, a ceremony or official performance for every accomplishment, and generally building up his self-esteem at every opportunity, seems to be the rage these days.  But will these practices lead to adult happiness?  Do they develop virtue in our children?  No and no.  Interested in this topic, read the above article from the Atlantic.  With the exception of an adult word in the first paragraph, it’s amazing.  Here are some excerpts–

“It’s like the way our body’s immune system develops,” he explained. “You have to be exposed to pathogens, or your body won’t know how to respond to an attack. Kids also need exposure to discomfort, failure, and struggle.”

When ego-boosting parents exclaim “Great job!” not just the first time a young child puts on his shoes but every single morning he does this, the child learns to feel that everything he does is special. Likewise, if the kid participates in activities where he gets stickers for “good tries,” he never gets negative feedback on his performance. (All failures are reframed as “good tries.”) According to Twenge, indicators of self-esteem have risen consistently since the 1980s among middle-school, high-school, and college students. But, she says, what starts off as healthy self-esteem can quickly morph into an inflated view of oneself—a self-absorption and sense of entitlement that looks a lot like narcissism. In fact, rates of narcissism among college students have increased right along with self-esteem.

[P] arents who protect their kids from accurate feedback teach them that they deserve special treatment… Paradoxically, all of this worry about creating low self-esteem might actually perpetuate it. No wonder my patient Lizzie told me she felt “less amazing” than her parents had always said she was. Given how “amazing” her parents made her out to be, how could she possibly live up to that? Instead of acknowledging their daughter’s flaws, her parents, hoping to make her feel secure, denied them….

..The irony is that measures of self-esteem are poor predictors of how content a person will be, especially if the self-esteem comes from constant accommodation and praise rather than earned accomplishment. According to Jean Twenge, research shows that much better predictors of life fulfillment and success are perseverance, resiliency, and reality-testing—qualities that people need so they can navigate the day-to-day.

As a parent, I’m all too familiar with this. I never said to my son, “Here’s your grilled-cheese sandwich.” I’d say, “Do you want the grilled cheese or the fish sticks?” On a Saturday, I’d say, “Do you want to go to the park or the beach?”…But after I’d set up this paradigm, we couldn’t do anything unless he had a choice. One day when I said to him, “Please put your shoes on, we’re going to Trader Joe’s,” he replied matter-of-factly: “What are my other choices?” I told him there were no other choices—we needed something from Trader Joe’s. “But it’s not fair if I don’t get to decide too!” he pleaded ingenuously. He’d come to expect unlimited choice…

…Like most of my peers, I’d always thought that providing choices to young children gave them a valuable sense of agency, and allowed them to feel more in control. But Barry Schwartz’s research shows that too much choice makes people more likely to feel depressed and out of control.

Kids need to feel out of control sometimes.  You don’t always get a choice.  Most workplaces don’t reward employees with a trophy each year, and everyone fails.  Better to start learning these skills as a child, when the consequences are often painful but the scares build great character.  And that is why Mr. Red doesn’t let Charlie win.  Charlie doesn’t need to practice winning.  He needs to learn how to lose.  He needs to learn the hard way that if he keeps playing, someday he really will beat Dad, and he will know that he earned it.