Last weekend Pittsburgh Steelers
linebacker James Harrison posted an Instagram photo of a pair of “participation trophies” that
were awarded to his two sons – and apparently to everyone else on the team as
well – by their sports league. Harrison announced firmly that he is returning
the trophies because they weren’t earned.
“While I am very proud of my boys for
everything they do,” he wrote, “and will encourage them till the day I die,
these trophies will be given back until they EARN a real trophy”:
I'm sorry I'm not sorry for believing that
everything in life should be earned and I’m not about to raise two boys to be
men by making them believe that they are entitled to something just because
they tried their best...cause sometimes your best is not enough, and that
should drive you to want to do better...not cry and whine until somebody gives
you something to shut u up and keep you happy.#harrisonfamilyvalues
James Harrison has lived his own lesson about
earning success. The youngest of 14 children, Harrison was a walk-on at the
Kent State University football team, went undrafted by the NFL in 2002, and was
cut four times by pro teams before going on to become a five-time Pro Bowl
selection. “James is the type of person who will say: ‘I will prove you wrong.
I deserve to be here,’” said Harrison’s best friend. Harrison, now 37, seems
determined to instill that perseverance and fortitude in his boys, who are 8
and 6 years old.
The photo subsequently went viral and Harrison’s “family values” met with approval from every corner of
the internet. The very fact that his principled position was so applauded
indicates not only to what degree our culture has become infected with an
entitlement mentality, but also to what degree many Americans have had enough
of it. They recognize what should be obvious: that if everyone gets a trophy,
then the trophy is meaningless; if simply showing up is praiseworthy, then the praise
is worthless.
There is a scene in Lewis Carroll’s Alice
in Wonderland in which the Dodo Bird is asked to declare the winner of
a running competition, and without considering how far each participant had run
or for how long, he announces that “Everybody has won and all must have
prizes!” While reasonable people may find this nonsensical and patently unfair,
it unfortunately describes an attitude toward children that has become
prevalent among many educators, coaches, and child development experts.
Their theory that shoring up a child’s
self-esteem is of primary educational importance has led to an obsession with
protecting young people’s feelings at the expense of actual education, even in
institutions of higher learning. Safe spaces, trigger warnings, and other politically
correct shelters encourage insularity and infantilism rather than the
broadening and maturation that should be the point of education.
In her book All Must Have Prizes, the brilliant columnist Melanie Phillips
addressed the intellectual failure and moral relativism at the heart of such an
educational doctrine. A Rousseau-influenced, “child-centered” approach meant
that education was no longer seen as “the transmission of knowledge but as a
therapeutic exercise in self-realization,” as Phillips put it. The result has
been neither better-educated kids nor
kids with better self-esteem.
Gill Robins, a British educator and author of
Praise, Motivation and the
Child, complains that handing
out prizes for all is “very patronizing” and “simply doesn’t work” in terms of
molding children’s behavior or laying the groundwork for their ability to understand
the world. “How can the self-esteem of a person possibly be nurtured by telling
them that they are as good at something as everyone else, even when they know
that it’s not true?” And yet “our thinking is still weighted down by an
outmoded belief that we can shape a person with daily bribes.”
No decent parents want their children to feel
like losers. But attempting to prop up a child’s self-esteem with hollow
participation trophies ensures not healthy confidence but narcissism. Jean M.
Twenge, author of The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of
Entitlement, writes that “[T]he ‘everybody gets a trophy’ mentality basically… builds this empty
sense of ‘I’m just fantastic, not because I did anything but just because I’m
here.’”
Of course, it’s important to encourage very
young children to attempt new things, and to reward them with praise for the
effort, regardless of how successful the attempt. You don’t want them to be
afraid to try. You want them to know they have your unfailing support. But gradually
they must be challenged and allowed to fail. At some point the training wheels
must come off, and they must experience falling down and learn to get up and
try again. They must develop – the hard way – a realistic sense of their own
talents and of the sometimes boundary-pushing mental and physical effort
required to actually accomplish something. Authentic self-esteem comes from
striving and achieving, not from empty praise and condescending trophies.
Perhaps the widespread, approving response to
James Harrison’s stand is an encouraging indication that parents are once again
embracing common sense, and that failed educational theories are headed the way
of the Dodo.
From Acculturated, 8/20/15
From Acculturated, 8/20/15
