Lizzy wrote:

---

 

mctex wrote:

---

 

Lizzy wrote:

---

 

mctex wrote:

---

 

muffy wrote:

---

 

Lizzy wrote:

---

I have a somewhat different view than the pp. I think that we "coddle" kids too much these days and extend childhood, especially adolescenthood. if you look at previous generations,the ages when they acomplished things is much younger (ala benjamin franklin, who ended schooling at 10, which i don't advocate ;) but seriously, college just seems like one big party fest - which if that is the case, no, i would not want my child to do that, but yeah, graduate early and see the world, ie. peace corps, americorps, etc. that is ok with me. even apprentiships...whatever happened to those anyway?

i really don't know the "solution" but it does seem previous generations got married earlier and started familys - nowdays, we don't encourage that, but it does seem to leave many "kids" in flux, kwim?

---

back in ben franklin days kids were more responsible - they didn't have disco's and iphones and ps3's to make them lazy - they knew they had to go out and work to survive.

my grandpa was the same thing - he stopped school in 8th grade to be a courier on wall street (nyc).  he worked hard, got job in mailroom, became apprentice..... then the war started and he joined the army because that was the responsible thing to do...  he finally graduated high school in his 20's and went to college after ww2.  and let me tell you - he was right disgusted with my 3 male cousins how lazy they were and how they screwed up their lives....his impression of our generation is a bunch of spoiled brats LOL.

but we can't change it - it is what it is.  technology changed us.  the banks throwing credit cards at 18 year olds with no credit taught them the don't need to work to get that new iphone... society, business, media all help it along - it made us lazy people in general... that is what has turned this generation into spoiled brats.

yeah - i am scared for my kids.  i am scared i am not going to be able to keep them on the right track.

seriously.  sometimes i wake up in the middle of the night and this turns in my head.

also, my brother did the peace corps thing - 4 years in africa.  then graduate school.  he spent too much time "discovering himself"  and now as a 40 year old he told me he regrets not getting serious about his life a bit earlier.  but he was extreme - he had his first job earning over 20k per year when he was nearly 35 years old!  too much time with a backpack of his life belongings on his back lmao!

 

---

ITA with most of what you're saying, but on a random side tangent -- the old curmudgeonly "this generation is spoiled" arguments drive me absolutely bonkers. (There's plenty of it in my family, too.)

What's funny is if you ask these generations why they did what they did, IF they can give you an answer at all (many of them will tell you "I don't know, it's just what we did, what was expected"), they'll tell you it was so their children could have better lives.

And then they're pissed off because the lives of their children and children's children look so different from theirs, LOL. Thinking of Maslow's hierarchy, if they were successful at satisfying the physiological and safety needs of their time, it would follow (and IMO it does) that our challenges would be about things related to love/self-esteem/the self.

I don't think it's the technology has made us lazy. I think the technology has made life's challenges very different... and one of those new challenges that our ancestors didn't have is how to forge an authentically satisfying path when one now has almost too many options.

Which is precisely why I do not feel kids are "coddled" and that adolescence lasts too long... on the contrary, I think it NEEDS to last longer now, so that no huge decisions are made before an individual has an appropriate read on their sense of self.

---

to take this off-topic completely ;)....have you read some of the studies which say that this generation is increasingly narisistic? 

 

 

---

That would make sense, but I'm thinking it's for a variety of reasons.

Here's the actual test... in looking at the questions, you can see that some of the answers are actually desirable -- we want people to feel empowered and capable, no?

At that link, Pinsky says this:
"There's no such thing as a good or bad result on this test. Scoring high on the narcissism inventory, or high on any of the component categories, doesn't mean you have a disorder, or that you're a good or bad person."

I think (and it looks like Pinsky's book hints at) that the adverse consequences of this increased sense of self comes from how it's manifested in our culture -- not that it exists to begin with. Kids today think the meaning of life is to try to gain fortune and fame to "prove" ones worth/superiority over others -- created by the celebrity culture. IMO, the turn away from spirituality in our society has left people searching for meaning in life, and this and consumption has taken its place.

(Which is why I made the conscious choice to renew my personal faith; I'd rather worship God than Britney Spears)

 

---

yes...i agree and i think you are on point about the celebrity culture influencing behavior.  i would also argue that we are probably going to see a backlash against excess consumerism (ala conspicuous consumption) in this next generation (with the new focus on green living, etc.) in addition,  i predict that the overt emphasis on oneself being special will empower them to look outward.  it seems that things naturally correct themselves, ie. if you were raised with too much permisiveness, you tend to have more of an authoritative role with your own children, etc. (not referring to 'you' specifically, just in general), kwim?

 

---

I think that pendulum is already starting to shift.  Unlike when I began in this field where the focus was on the student alone, a lot of the emphasis in residential education is to take a college first year who is looking inward and to assist in the maturation to help them look outward by year 4 (or 5...or 6, lol).  One of my RAs entire responsibility is to program on "big picture" items to help students see beyond their bubble.  The earthquake in Haiti, food inc, headlines of the day, volunteering, etc.