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The Fragile Generation

"We have raised a generation of young people who have not been given the opportunity to…experience failure and realize they can survive it." - Professor Peter Gray

Below is an article I recently received from a friend (thank you, Cathy)...It's some of the most depressing stuff I've read in a long time.

It's a long article, and I recommend it for everyone.  I'm a realist, however, and know most won't read it all.  So, I've pulled some of the most important quotes.  That said, I really do recommend the entire article.

But I want to start off with a video first.

The Fragile Generation
By:  Lenore Skenazy & Jonathan Haidt

The quotes below are pulled from various parts of the article.  They are not necessarily in order, and absolutely are not the entire article - not even close...Please give them some time and thought.  We can't afford to be raising children who are stunted mentally or emotionally.  If for no other reason, they are the ones who will eventually be leading our country and taking care of us.

"Children today are safer and smarter than this culture gives them credit for. They deserve the freedom we had. The country's future prosperity and freedom depend on it."

"How did we come to think a generation of kids can't handle the basic challenges of growing up?…We've had the best of intentions, of course. But efforts to protect our children may be backfiring. When we raise kids unaccustomed to facing anything on their own, including risk, failure, and hurt feelings, our society and even our economy are threatened. Yet modern child-rearing practices and laws seem all but designed to cultivate this lack of preparedness. There's the fear that everything children see, do, eat, hear, and lick could hurt them."

"Parents, teachers, and professors are talking about the growing fragility they see. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the overprotection of children and the hypersensitivity of college students could be two sides of the same coin. By trying so hard to protect our kids, we're making them too safe to succeed."

"Ironically, there are real health dangers in not walking, or biking, or hopping over that stump. A Johns Hopkins study this summer found that the typical 19-year-old is as sedentary as a 65-year-old."

"Of course, it's natural to want to see kids happy. But the real secret to happiness isn't more high fives; it's developing emotional resilience. In our mania for physical safety, coupled with our recent tendency to talk about 'emotional safety,' we have systematically deprived our children of the thousands of challenging - and sometimes upsetting - experiences that they need in order to learn that resiliency. And in our quest to protect them, we have stolen from children the best resilience training known to man: free play."

"It's tempting to blame 'helicopter parents' for today's less resilient kids. But when all the first-graders are walking themselves to school, it's easy to add yours to the mix. When your child is the only one, it's harder. And that's where we are today. Norms have dramatically changed. The kind of freedom that seemed unremarkable a generation ago has become taboo, and in some cases even illegal."

"When parents curtail their kids' independence, they're not just depriving the younglings of childhood fun. They are denying themselves the grown-up joy of seeing their kids do something smart, brave, or kind without parental guidance."

"When we don't let our kids do anything on their own, we don't get to see just how competent they can be - and isn't that, ultimately, the greatest reward of parenting? We need to make it easier for grown-ups to let go while living in a society that keeps warning them not to."

"By trying to keep children safe from all risks, obstacles, hurt feelings, and fears, our culture has taken away the opportunities they need to become successful adults. In treating them as fragile - emotionally, socially, and physically - society actually makes them so."

"Nothing we do, no amount of toys we buy or 'quality time' or special training we give our children, can compensate for the freedom we take away. The things that children learn through their own initiatives, in free play, cannot be taught in other ways." - Professor Peter Gray

Thanksgiving - What I'm Most Thankful For This Year

All the way into 3/4th of the year I was certain the thing I'd be 'Most Thankful For This Year' would be HILLARY CLINTON NOT BEING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES...And then I got a call around 7 PM on September 21st.

Those with good memories should note, in 2016 I was 'Most Thankful For My Brother-in-Law's Car' - which probably saved our lives; or at the very least allowed us to carry on with our lives as we had prior to our accident...That event was on September 21, 2016.

Incredibly, this year, September 21, 2017, around 7 PM, I got a call from my youngest daughter that she'd been in a car accident...The car was totaled - she was not.

Even more incredibly, the next week, September 28, 2017, around 5 PM, I got another call that my oldest daughter was the main attraction in a four car accident...The car was totaled - she was not.

I say it all that time:  'The four of us have been so blessed and lucky' (me, my wife and children), and in this span of seven days it was proven again.  It sucks that we lost two cars, but we are more than thankful that those two cars did their job - taking the beating and protecting my wife's and my most precious gifts:  Our Daughters.

I detest Hillary Clinton and all of her Liberal pals, but I would have lived to fight another day had she become POTUS and the Democrats taken over control of Congress...I am not so sure I could say the same had anything truly terrible happened to my kids.

For that reason, on this Thanksgiving holiday I am most thankful for the continues luck of my family - specifically for the fact my daughters are okay after what could have been a horrific seven days in September.

Here's hoping next year I can be thankful for something not involving cars.
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On a different note:  Please keep our service men and women in mind...Especially those celebrating the holidays away from their loved ones.

PRAGER UNIVERSITY: What's the Truth About the First Thanksgiving?

"We teach what isn’t taught." - Dennis Prager

This semester of Prager University is presented by:  Michael Medved

“Today, with our continued blessings so obvious, and so overwhelming, the only reason to treat this beloved national holiday as a time of mourning is that some foolish Americans actually think that’s a good idea.  The Pilgrims knew better.  They understood that people of every culture and every era can gain more from gratitude than from guilt.” – M.M

“The celebration, later know as, the First Thanksgiving, actually involved a three-day harvest festival in October.  Apparently inspired by the biblical holiday of Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles.  Ninety hungry Indian warriors joined the 53 surviving Pilgrims for this occasion…[T]he sense of purpose of the original Pilgrims left a permanent imprint on the national character…They saw themselves as instruments, not masters, of a mysterious master plan." - M.M.

The entire Prager University Course List

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