One of the curious notions that permeates education circles these days, especially in the lower grades, is the idea that children should be told they are wonderful when they aren’t the least bit remarkable. This notion has expanded beyond the schools and now permeates the culture as a whole; it was recently questioned by a character on the popular TV show “Modern Family” when Jay told his wife, Gloria, that she should be honest with her son and not praise him when he doesn’t deserve it. It made for some light humor, but it raises an interesting point.
Educators like to think of themselves as occupying a special branch of social science, yet the fact that the social sciences do not support what has come to be called the “self-esteem movement” doesn’t seem to faze most of these people. When a school board member in the California school system was confronted by the evidence that stroking children undeservedly doesn’t improve their performance, he was reported to have said “I don’t care what the evidence shows, I know it works.”
Not only do the data not support the theory, they actually fly in the face of this theory and support the position Jay takes in the TV show mentioned above. In fact, a recent study showed an inverse correlation between empty praise and success. One group that was given false praise during the study actually performed worse than a control group, though unmerited self-esteem in the first group did rise dramatically during that period! This has led the authors of that study to conclude that “self-esteem boosting led to failure, not success.”
In the TV show, Jay’s son, Manny, is puffed up with the effusive praise his mother heaps on a centerpiece he has made for the dinner table on Thanksgiving. It is awful, and when Gloria is in the other room, Jay takes Manny aside and tells him the piece “is not your best work.” At the same time he assures the boy that he can do better and Manny senses that this is true — and we have one of those moments that suggest that TV really could be a valuable tool in helping us raise our children if it weren’t preoccupied with sex and violence and selling the sponsor’s products. Jay gives an honest opinion of the project while at the same time assuring the boy that he can do better: the comment does not tear down the boy’s self-confidence, it redirects his attention away from the false image his mother has created of him to the rather weak effort he has (knowingly) made and assures him that he can do better the next time. It is a character-building moment. Honesty really is the best policy.
Telling kids they are wonderful, or the latest project they made is terrific when in fact it is not does not build the child’s self-esteem. It actually confuses them and undermines their confidence in adults. Kids know when they are being misled, which may be one of the reasons they are drawn to sports of all kinds In sports, the athlete — at any age — knows when he or she has done something deserving praise. When the praise comes, in the form of applause or awards the athlete has a well-deserved sense of pride and accomplishment. When a child in school is told that her science project is great when she knows it took very little time, no imagination, and doesn’t even work, it simply confuses and undermines confidence in the teacher, or the one heaping praise. Moreover, when you think about it, false praise is insulting to the child.
As it happens the self-esteem movement has left the schoolhouse and has infiltrated other aspects of our culture — such as religion, where parishioners are told by their ministers that they are wonderful and God loves them even though they all drive gas-guzzlers, cheat on their taxes, and are having affairs with their neighbors. I shall return to this thought presently. At this point it might be asked why I am denigrating the widespread attempt to make people feel good about themselves and to have high self-esteem? On its face we would think that we would want our kids to be confident and self-assured and that an educational theory built around the concept of self-esteem would be a sound one that guarantees success in the classroom and later in life. Not so. As mentioned, the evidence suggests that unwarranted praise can be counter-productive. Praise in and of itself does not bring about success; rather, it’s the other way around: success that leads to heartfelt and well-deserved praise breeds higher self-esteem, self-esteem that can withstand disappointment and frustration. But despite the evidence, the self-esteem movement has taken the education establishment by storm, which is a mistake of the first order. To make my case I will call on Maureen Stout who holds a PhD in Education from UCLA and now teaches at California State University in Northridge. In 2000 she wrote the book on the self-esteem movement, titled The Feel-Good Curriculum: The Dumbing Down of America’s Kids in the Name of Self Esteem. The book is based on careful research and considerable first-hand experience. One of the key chapters begins as follows:
“. . . the self-esteem movement has slowly infiltrated education to the point that today most educators believe developing self-esteem to be one of the primary purposes of public education. As a result, schools are providing more courses in ‘life skills’ and less attention on academics, which are the core of a liberal education. The very essence of public schooling is thus being transformed. We are in danger of producing individuals who are expert at knowing how they feel rather than educated individuals who know how to think.. . .The self-esteem movement infiltrates virtually every aspect of schooling from teaching methods to evaluation to curriculum planning. It is the most popular of all the fads, and the most dangerous. . . .The preponderance of evidence illustrates that self-esteem is irrelevant in all areas of education.”
As if it isn’t troublesome enough that unwarranted self-esteem leads invariably to a false sense of entitlement — which is prevalent not only in our schools but also in the workplace — it apparently has even more serious consequences according to Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell. In their book The Narcissism Epidemic they argue that the self-esteem movement has blossomed into narcissism and it is a cultural phenomenon of epidemic proportions. To quote the authors at some length, we are told that:
“The cultural focus on self-admiration began with the shift toward focusing on the individual in the 1970s, documented in Tom Wolfe’s article on “The Me Decade” in 1976 and Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism. In the three decades since, narcissism has grown in ways these authors never could have imagined. The fight for the greater good of the 1960s became looking out for number one by the 1980s. Parenting became more indulgent, celebrity worship grew, and reality TV became a showcase of narcissistic people. The Internet brought useful technology but also the possibility of instant fame and a “look at me!” mentality. Using botulinum toxin to smooth facial wrinkles to perpetuate a youthful fact birthed a huge industry. The easy accessibility of credit allowed people to look better off financially than they actually were.”
As the authors are at pains to point out, this has all resulted from our preoccupation with ourselves and our mania to promote “self-esteem.” And as I have mentioned above, the problem is not that people are told that they are great; the problem is that people who are not great are told that they are. In other words, narcissism, as defined by Twenge and Campbell is built on a lie. Praise when deserved helps build genuine self-esteem and self-confidence. Undeserved praise builds a false sense of self-esteem which quickly translates into a sense of entitlement coupled with conceit, over-confidence, and the inability to establish personal connections with others. These are all character flaws which are not easily remedied. Narcissism even leads to violence, according to the authors, which might take us part of the way toward an explanation of the shootings in our schools that have become almost commonplace. As they say, “The long-term consequences are destructive to society.”
The narcissistic personality, which is becoming all too common, lives in a make-believe world where he or she is the only thing that matters: narcissism is a flight from reality that can become violent when the person is forced to see things as they really are or gets lost in a fantasy world. As the authors point out: “In fact, narcissism causes almost all of the things that Americans hoped self-esteem would prevent, including aggression, materialism, lack of caring for others, and shallow values.” Again, it is born of undeserved praise and adulation, which are essentially false; and that’s the core of the problem — in a culture that prides itself on its honesty.
We want our kids to be confident and self-assured and to grow into confident adults, as noted above. But heaping undeserved praise on them is obviously not the answer. And if our two authors are correct, it has serious consequences indeed as the kids grow into adulthood. The solution to the problem is better parenting, including the elimination of the self-esteem nonsense at home and in the schools. We need to say “no” and mean it, to be honest with kids, praise them when they deserve praise, and engage in constructive criticism when it is called for. It really isn’t rocket science: it’s just plain common sense.
