By Morris Malakoff, JTNews Correspondent
It wasn’t that long ago that when a couple gave birth to a child, and everyone in their personal community, including themselves, breathed a sigh of relief and felt blessed when the newborn had 10 fingers and 10 toes. From there, decades of grand achievement and daunting disappointments would forge a person to hopefully become a solid part of the next generation, no matter their station in life. It was a philosophy of child rearing that guided societies for thousands of years.
But according to Dr. Wendy Mogel, a Los Angeles-based psychologist and author of the book The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, modern society is becoming a place where kids are given all the benefits of achievement — even if not legitimately deserved — and sheltered from the bruises and scars of disappointment and failure.
“Contrary to Jewish teachings that tell us to prepare our children to leave home and begin their own lives, we now overprotect and overindulge to the detriment of our children and their future,” she says. “It makes parents who are striving to raise their children in a traditional way become like salmon swimming against the current of a stream. They are overwhelmed by a society where everyone lives in a private world of Ipods, cell phones and computers, and where parents expect their children to be perfect in every endeavor, be it in the classroom or playing a musical instrument or in sports.”
Mogel will speak at Town Hall on Nov. 7 at an engagement presented by the Seattle Jewish Community School in partnership with Jewish Family Service, the Samis Foundation, Tree of Life Books & Judaica, and ParentMap Magazine. In her talk, Mogel will offer parents strategies to overcome the tidal wave of pressure to raise their children in a bubble-wrapped world.
Mogel says that the drive for everyone to be perfect and to never suffer the slings and arrows of being labeled as average has become a cultural norm. No more do they experience the lessons that come with “learning the hard way.”
“Parents do everything for their kids,” she says. “We always remind them to take a sweater on a cold day and make sure it is in their hand. But they never get the opportunity to learn the consequences of forgetting.”
“We all know parents who strive to be their child’s best friend and do whatever it takes to give that child happiness in the moment, and it is easy to laugh or ridicule them,” she said. “But it is very difficult to hold your ground when everyone else, including the school system and popular culture, is telling them and their children otherwise.”
Mogel said parents have a natural urge to protect and shelter their children, which makes letting them make their own mistakes even more difficult.
“We want the best for them and we want them to achieve. But to not allow them to discover that life is not perfect and that they will not always be the best at everything dishonors the child,” she said.
In The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, Mogel confronts the issues that come with raising children through the early school years. Mogel is currently working on a follow-up text to the current book. In this book, The Blessing of a B Minus, (currently in the process of being written), she addresses how those seeds planted in childhood begin to manifest themselves even more dramatically in the adolescent years.
“This is where I often feel like what goes on is essentially child abuse,” she said. “Parents become ‘transcript pimps,’ not just demanding a solid effort and good grades, but engineering and scheming for the perfect child. They are hiring tutors a couple of times a week, chastising educators because their child did not get an ‘A’, and causing anxiety in the family. In the process, the child often loses [his or her] childhood, their play time and time to just be a kid, because they are cramming for perfection.”
Mogel also frowns heavily on a society that has come to reward a child’s mere presence in the room and shelters that child from criticism.
In the educational world, that gets manifested as “participation awards.”
“Everyone gets one, and there is a heavy penalty for the teacher or coach who actually would criticize a child’s performance,” she says.
Mogel relates a story of a high school volleyball coach who garnered complaints because he did not praise every touch of the ball by his girl players.
“After a meeting about it with administration and parents, he was told that he could still criticize his players, but his words had to be measured so that for every one that was negative he put forth six that were positive,” she said.
While such foibles on the playing field or the classroom seem harmless, Mogel is quick to point out that today’s youth are tomorrow’s doctors, lawyers and community leaders.
“Think about it,” she said. “That kid that today gets a high grade because the teacher feels pressured by the parents or administration to keep the child and the parents happy just might be the one holding a scalpel over you in 20 years.”