Grooming Our Kids for Failure.

Recently on a current affairs television program here in Melbourne there was a story exploring the concept of children not receiving 'traditional' school report cards and not being graded (marked) on their school work at all.nThe key message of the program was that evaluating our kids and actually scoring them on their work and exams might set them up for some kind of long-term emotional pain or short-term social judgement and ridicule from their peers.nApparently the traditional concept of report cards might do some kind of damage and it might be in our kid's interest to 'protect' them from any form of assessment or evaluation.nnClearly, turning up to school is enough.nnWhat a great idea.nThat way nobody will get upset.nFantastic.nnWe wouldn't want children to compare report cards and we wouldn't want anyone to do 'better' or 'worse' than anyone else would we?nIdeally, everyone will get about the same mark, no one will fail, no one will get upset, all the parents will be happy, no kids will have to deal with any pressure, no waves will be made and then we'll all go home and sing nice, warm, fuzzy songs around the fire and drink hot milk.nThen we'll put our pyjamas on and dad will read amazing stories to us; ones where we are the heroes.nGive me a bucket.nnWhat a great preparation for the realities of life beyond school this kind of learning environment would be. What are we teaching our kids when the message is that... not studying, not paying attention in class, not completing homework and not being a responsible, diligent student... has no real downside?nnBack in the dark ages when I was at school my teachers employed this wacky notion of telling us whether or not our school work was great, good, bad or otherwise.nThey even gave us grades.nAnd when my report cards were bad my folks got mad at me... not the teacher.nCrazy, I know.nSurprisingly I didn't die from this... or suffer any irreparable damage.nnSometimes kids even failed a subject.nInterestingly, none of them died either (as a result of that failure).nSome of them even went away, studied, worked harder, passed the next semester, developed some new skills and learned a lot from the experience!nnIs it just me, or does is dawn on anybody else that the rampant over-protection of our kids (and not just in a school setting) doesn't really help them at all?nIt's not always an advantage but often, a significant disadvantage?nI'm not a kid-ologist (made that up) but I do own a kid's gym and do observe lots of parents in action and it seems to me that some parents are so paranoid and over-protective that the very thing they don't want... they end up creating; kids who can't cope, can't adapt and don't fit in.nnThe world is a messy, lumpy, bumpy, unfair, nasty, unpredictable place.nPerhaps we should let our kids experience a little pain, discomfort, adversity... life.nOne of the realities of life beyond school is that we are regularly (if not, constantly) evaluated, judged, criticised and given feedback. Some of it's positive, some negative, some of it's nice, some of it's nasty... it's just happens.nTry and find a job where you're never given feedback about your performance... good luck with that.nIn life not everybody 'wins', not everybody has fun, not everybody has it easy and not everybody 'passes' everything.nPerhaps this would be a valuable lesson for our kids.nSometimes we fail, fall down, get hurt, make mistakes... and dealing with these realities is how and when we do our real learning.nnOne day some of these 'protected' kids are going to get a rude awakening when they step out of their cushy, cosy, comfy, manufactured school experience... and step into the workplace.nnI worry that by building these weird academic environments where 'everybody passes'... and nobody gets and 'F'... we prevent our kids from experiencing reality. We prevent our kids from developing the strength, skills, attitudes and coping mechanisms to be able to negotiate the realities of life.nWe handicap them.nYes, we mean well...but no, we're not helping in the long-term.nnI also worry that neurotic, insecure parents are raising neurotic, insecure kids.nnI personally know several women who have been so determined to 'protect' their daughters from the 'perils' of obesity (fat girls get picked on) that they have kindly passed on all of their own obsessive behaviours and attitudes around food to their girls.nMum was picked on for being chubby... so she'll do anything to protect her daughter from going through that same experience.nnIncluding giving her an eating disorder.nThanks Mum.nnI know that the parents and teachers motives are (usually) good and honourable but perhaps we need to ask ourselves whether or not all this 'protection' is grooming our kids for success... or failure.nnWaddya think?