Are We Raising a Nation of Wimps?

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 1 Corinthians 9:24

While reading “Culture Shift” by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., I was stirred after reading the eleventh chapter titled “Are We Raising a Nation of Wimps”. Mohler got his title for the chapter from the Psychology Today article “A Nation of Wimps”, written by Hara Estroff Marano.

The big idea in the chapter is—A Coddled Generation Cannot Cope!

I am the proud father of three boys. Two of my boys, Josiah (7) and Ethan (5) are playing team sports. There are many things I have experienced while helping coach their teams that drive me nuts. I will mention two of them.

First, in some of our games we did not keep score. Why do you play a game if you do not keep score? To me, to not keep score takes the fun out of the game and reduces it down to a glorified playground activity. Second, every team receives trophies at the end of the year. Even teams that did not win a game distributed trophies to their players. Since when was it advantageous to reward losing?

Marano begins her article commenting on how parents are giving their children a cushioned childhood. She points out how many parents are now spending a great deal of their time doing little more than protecting their children from life.

What is the result of all this? Our kids are growing up to be pampered wimps who are incapable of assuming adult responsibility and have no idea how to handle the routine challenges of life even though they have a shelf full of trophies.

My father taught me how to overcome adversity as a little child in one of the most simplistic manners. We used to play paper football every night on the kitchen counter after dinner. My father’s fine motor skills were much more advanced than mine, and as a result, I experienced defeat game after game. I do not think I ever beat him flicking the triangle football hoping it would stop on the edge of the counter.

After every defeat, I remember getting very upset and frustrated. My father would always make me shake his hand and say, “good game”. Learning how to overcome failure with a good attitude as a young child, while playing an uncomplicated game, was instrumental to my future success as a teenager and adult.

David Elkind, a prominent child psychologist, states, “Kids need to feel badly sometimes… We learn through experience and we learn through bad experiences. Through failure we learn to cope.”

That seems to be a foreign concept to many of today’s parents. Coddled by a generation of baby boomers, today’s parents have turned into hyper-protectors. Kids are not allowed to play, because they might get hurt. In today’s highly competitive environment, kids have to excel at everything, even if parents have to actually do the work or negotiate an assisted success.”Messing up” is simply out of style, Marano explains. “Although error and experimentation are the true mothers of success, parents are taking pains to remove failure from the equation.”

“Whether we want to or not, we’re on our way to creating a nation of wimps,” Marano warns.

Psychological distress is rampant on college campuses. Psychological distress—sometime evident in the mild form of anxiety and, in other cases, in binge drinking, self-mutilation, and even suicide—are now major concerns of college administrators.

As Steven Hyman, Harvard University’s provost and former director of the National Institute of Mental Health lamented, the problem “is interfering with the core mission of the university.” What is the source of this problem? Observers are zeroing in on parental pampering as the most critical factor behind this pattern of student “disconnect.” Smothered by parental attention and decision making during childhood and adolescence, these young people arrive on college campuses without the ability to make their own decisions, live with their choices, learn form their experiences, and grapple with the issues of adult life.

The article goes on to cite the experience of psychologist Robert Epstein of the University of California, San Diego. When Epstein announced to his class that he “expected them to work hard and would hold them to high standards,” he received an outraged response from a parent—using his official judicial stationery—accusing the professor of mistreating the young.

Mohler writes, “While we are charged to protect our children from evil and to guard them from harm, we are not to shield them from reality. As our children grow older, they should demonstrate an increasing maturity that allows them to deal with the problems of life—not to run from them.”

Unfortunately, the younger generation is also guilty. They must face the reality of a generation that seems, in all too many cases, unwilling to grow up, assume responsibility, and become genuine adults.

Let’s remember the words of Apostle Paul written to the church at Rome. In Romans 5:3-4 he writes, “(3) We rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; (4) perseverance, character: and character, hope.”

And let’s be thankful for the lessons learned from skinned knees, routine disappointments, hard work, and the coach who refuses to buy trophies for a team without a win (I am always keeping score!).

Otherwise, we too will be raising a generation of wimps.