Are We Over the Top With Rewards?

Being an old wrestler and coach, and a veteran of those long Saturday tournaments for about 40 years, I have been troubled by a number of things that have happened at the youth level to a sport that I love.  Nothing is more troubling than the “buy-a-medal” policy they have in place at so many of these local tournaments held throughout the winter.  Most small town tournaments run a four man round robin tournament and award four medals, where basically, you pay your entry fee and your youngster walks away with a medal.  Even if they do not win a wrestling match all day, they get a medal.  Youth softball and soccer teams regularly give a medal, and some even a trophy, to all kids who play on a team.  So how come we reward participation (some would say mediocrity or losing) rather than awarding success?  Social commentators and researchers will say it is because of a huge shift in our society where we have become more sensitive to feelings and self-esteem.  But is that a good thing?  Have we cheapened hard work and commitment to excellence?  Are we settling for less than the best?  At their most impressionable age, are we teaching children the right values?

Further evidence is the fact that at some schools over 50% of the junior and senior class are in National Honor Society.  How can that be?  Are the standards too low?  Is grade inflation that far out of whack?  How is it an honor to be in a group that 50% of the students qualify for?  Look at those pageants for little girls.  Nearly all of them walk away with a crown and a trophy?  Heck, county and state fairs quit giving white ribbons at 4-H and FFA shows 20 years ago.  Now people get bent out of shape when they get a red ribbon!  What is the message here?

In an article that I read recently it was stated that Americans believe that most of us are average.  In essence they buy in to the bell curve where the majority of folks are in the middle with smaller percentages of folks on the high and low end.  The funny thing is that when asked where they see themselves, most identify themselves as being above average.  This is an over-generalization of the research, but is allows me to pose the question, if each of us believer we are above average, who are the folks below average?  And, because we believe we are above average, we are entitled to those things that come to those who are above average.  Thus, we believe that we are entitled to the rewards or awards, and to appease this attitude, want, or need, we have added more awards.  Rather than wiping away tears at that wrestling meet, parents see a little smile on the face of their little wrestler, even if he did lose all of the matches he wrestled.  The most elite athletes in the world compete for three medals, and yet at high school meets we award five, six, even eight at some state meets.  Is this excellence?

Here’s the problem.  We have developed a generation of young people with a false sense of their abilities and success.  And, when kids have to stand on their own, or when the competition gets a little tougher, many lack the work ethic, skill, and internal fortitude to be successful.  And, as they get older and the medals and trophies quit coming, they come up with reasons not to continue.  Maybe they recognize that they aren’t as good as they thought they were, but they never put it that way.  Rather, the term “burnout” is used.  Or, the coach has it in for them, or it just isn’t fun anymore.  However, the bottom line is that when they were little they were showered with rewards for just showing up.  In life, you have to do more than show up – you have to produce.  It wouldn’t be a bad idea to be honest with people and take a few steps back.  Though it may be hard, we need to be able to tell our kids that their effort isn’t good enough and that they need to put forth more effort.  It may be possible that the message we send is that they aren’t there yet and that they need to be patient and persistent.  Maybe that white ribbon is deserved and should send a message that they need to work a little harder or understand that perseverance is a positive character trait.  Life lessons when kids are young often have strong benefits when they are older.

What Parents Should Say as Their Kids Perform

I was made aware of a blog a while back after having conversation with a number of administrators and came across a recent article that is kind of in the same theme of some that I have written lately.  One of the things that I really believe is lacking in our student body is strong leadership.  We have discussed this for a few years and have come to the point where we have talked enough and we need to do something.  While subscribing to a blog isn't a real impressive step and most likely is in itself not going to make a difference in student leadership, we need resources, and the article I am sharing with you today is one such resource.  Dr. Tim Elmore is the author of the blog and is a "leading authority on how to understand the next generation and prepare tomorrow's leaders today."  A best-selling author, he is also an international speaker and president of Growing Leaders, a nonprofit organization that helps "develop emerging leaders under the philosophy that each child is born with leadership qualities."  This blog article is one that I have pulled that I think paints a pretty good picture for parents and their role with their child.  It is relative to sports, but the message is the same for all aspects of school and a child's life.  

What Parents Should Say as Their Kids Perform

GRIT!

Grit is a term that I don’t hear as much as I used to, unless I am looking for sandpaper.  My grandfather, and for that matter my mother, used that term a lot when I was younger to describe toughness when they were talking about people.  John Wayne, maybe the toughest cowboy of them all, exhibited that trait playing Rooster Cogburn in the movie True Grit way back when. 

A University of Pennsylvania professor has done research the past few years focused on what role effort plays in a person’s success.  Angela Duckworth was a middle and high school teacher before she became a psychology professor.  She spent a lot of time thinking about a concept that most of us believe is common sense: students who tried the hardest did the best, and those that didn’t try very hard didn’t do very well.  Sure, that makes a lot of sense.  But, what about talent and aptitude?  What about intelligence?  Don’t those smarter kids have an advantage?  Can’t they be successful without putting forth a strong effort?  We also know that as far as school success is concerned, poverty and thus a child’s background play a role in success.  But Duckworth says that regardless, those are secondary to the effort that one puts forth.

In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argues that there are a number of factors that determine success, from the month in which one is born to living in the right place at the right time.  But, Gladwell also claims that the key to success in any field is the 10,000-hour rule, which means that it is a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours.  That is an incredible amount of time!  That takes grit!

Duckworth goes on to write that the person with grit recognizes that achievement is a marathon, not a sprint.  The student that has grit has stamina and sticks with a task until they get it right.  She even suggests that when it comes to high levels of achievement, grit may be as essential as intelligence, which debunks the commonly held belief that one’s IQ is the key to success.  While intelligence is easily measured, grit is tougher to get a handle on, but according to Duckworth, those who stick with a task, who work hard, and who show determination do succeed.  In fact, in a study she conducted at an Ivy League school, the “grittiest” students had higher GPA’s than the smartest ones. 

High school students of this generation have a strong desire for instant gratification.  They are the gamers that thrive on instantaneous rewards and moving up levels.  They tweet and post constantly with immediate feedback from friends, which is a lot different than letter writing!  Educators talk a lot about kids simply wanting an answer without understanding the process or reworking a problem until they understand it.  And, many parents with good intentions swoop in to problem-solve rather than watch their child struggle and sometimes fail.  Persistence.  Tenacity.  Perseverance.  Diligence.  Grit!  It is probably the single most important quality that we as parents can work to instill in our children if we want to see them succeed and achieve.

Is This Who We Are?

I collect a lot of bits and pieces of information.  Years ago I kept a box of clippings from newspapers and magazines, as well as copies of something I might have read, or scribbles of something I heard and wrote down.  Today with the Internet, I cut and paste snippets from articles I have come across, or download things that I want to remember or return to at some point.  As I was sorting through some of my “treasures” I came across a statement that I cut and pasted during the time of the New Orleans Saints “bounty-gate scandal” when coaches and players conspired to deliberately injure opposing players for cash during NFL football games.  The quote comes from an article written by my favorite sports columnist, Jason Whitlock from Fox Sports.  Here it is:

“Payton, Williams, Jonathan Vilma and all the Saints reflect what is true about modern American society. We’re cold, ruthless and unashamed in pursuit of the things we want. We no longer pretend fair play is important or valued. We condone torture. We’ve lost the courage to compromise, surrendering our national discourse to left and right extremists.”

Boy! That is a pretty strong indictment of the society we live in, and when I look at politics, it does ring very true.  Politicians have lost all sense of decorum, including our Supreme Court justices who make very derogatory public comments after rulings, which is something that has not happened in our nation’s history until recently.  Name-calling is basically accepted on the floor of our congress, and in the media it happens on a daily basis.  It seems that in every political race of importance, rules are bent and candidates will say whatever they need to in order to garner a few more votes.  In speeches things are said that have no factual basis without apology or remorse.

It goes beyond politics.  How many times in recent years has the media published something that is wrong in order to win the race to be the first?  For most of our history there was a great deal of pride in the integrity of journalism, but now the competition for being first with a story has erased all sense of integrity.  Major college athletic programs are rift with cheating and scandal all in the name of victories, which leads to money and television appearances.  What more needs to be said about banks and Wall Street? 

Unfortunately this mentality has invaded our homes as well.  Parents cover up for their children’s missteps, some of them following the philosophy of “it isn’t illegal/wrong if you don’t get caught.”  Some choose to move their children around from one district to another in order to get them on a better team or with a better coach.  I have had one coaching friend told by a parent that he was not to “mess with his son’s pitching mechanics because he pays for professional pitching instruction.”  Other parents take a great deal of pride of being someone who “says what’s on their mind” regardless of whether it is appropriate and regardless of who may hear it or who it may hurt.  Kind of like Nike’s Just Do It mantra, we now live in a society that also seems to advocate Just Say It!

I believe that we are better than this.  But I also recognize that there is a huge hill to climb.  In this country, and in our community, there are many people with strong moral character, who do things the right way.  They have not been tainted by the “win at all costs” mentality, or by Just Do It.  We need those people to step forward and lead.  If they aren’t willing to do that on their own, then we need to encourage them to do so.  By the same token, in our schools we need to do a better job of including character development in everything that we do.  Winning with honor is a much better motto to live by than winning at all costs.  Being respectful and courteous will take us a lot further in life.  Just Do The Right Thing!

Iowa Board Strikes a Blow For Local Control

Good news came out today in an email from the Iowa Association for School Boards.  The Iowa Board of Education rejected Governor Branstad’s attempt to force schools to give up local control on setting the start date for the school year.  I have written about this before so I won’t present my argument again, but while I am an advocate of a later start to the school year, I salute the Board of Education’s decision to vote against the proposed rule changes.  Branstad was kowtowing to the demands of lobbyists for the tourism industry and state fair.  Fortunately, our leaders on the state board have not let demands from business and cronyism determine the schedule for education.  The state fair folks claim that they want increased attendance, which is a smokescreen for wanting more kids to serve as cheap, minimum wage labor in the concession trailers and doing grunt work for the fair.  Waterpark and theme park owners want to bleed a couple more weeks work out of kids rather than have them start their education.  It all reeks of greed and self-interest, and is a blatant case of hypocrisy on behalf of the governor who claims to be putting in place an educational program that will improve learning for Iowa school children.  How does starting school a couple of weeks later improve education?

For those of you that regularly read my blog, you know that I advocate a later start in the school year, and actually go further and advocate year-round school.  Until every school building in Iowa is air conditioned, it makes a lot more sense to have kids in these buildings in June than in the furnaces they become in August.  Plus, with school-sponsored sports in Iowa taking place in the summer, there is nothing wrong with giving families the month of August for family time.  I would love to see a rule that bans all school practices, camps and rehearsals in the month of August, but that is for another day!  I could go on and on with my argument.  However, I don’t want to lose my fundamental point: the Iowa Board of Education did not bow to political pressure and the influence of big business.  A couple of board members stated that they have never received as many emails and letters on an issue as they had on this school start matter.  It’s nice to know we have educational leaders that represent the people and did not take another chunk out of local control.   

Is Summer Too Busy For The Kids?

Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.  That’s an old saying that comes to mind when I hear people talking about how busy their kids are during the summer.  I think back to my summers as a high school student and I was just as busy as the kids are today, though it was a different kind of busy.  Most of my days were spent getting up around 5:30 in the morning, but rather than hitting the weight room and participating in a conditioning program, I got picked up in front of my house by Kenny Dobenecker and went to work for him, most often tinning barns or shingling houses.  We had an hour lunch break and if we came back to town I would grab a sandwich and head to the baseball field to hit in the batting cage with our baseball coach who was always up there from 11:00 to 1:00 to give us a chance to take some swings.  Back to work after that and then depending on whether I had a game that night or practice, I usually got off around 4:00.  Somehow I worked chores in there as we had 4-H livestock and spent a number of weekends at calf shows.

I hear a lot of people say that our kids are too busy in the summer, and I hear kids say that they don’t want to play baseball or softball because they want to take time off.  And we have kids that don’t come into the school to spend an hour to an hour-and-a-half in our strength and conditioning program.  And yet, I know a number of these same kids are not holding down a full-time job either.  So are kids too busy in the summer, or does it just seem that they are going in a number of different directions because everyone wants a piece of them?  I will give you that as on a recent day my own daughter did strength and conditioning, did some running to work on conditioning for cross country, shot some baskets and played a couple of softball games.  She doesn’t hold down a summer job because she already has plenty to do, but is she any busier than I was some 30+ years ago?

Perhaps the biggest difference between our kid’s summers and the one’s we had years ago is the level of organization and the number of people pulling them.  In some respects, I think that the demands placed on the kids include the parents by default because in some instances they have to help them get where they are going, and of course they want to attend games and other events.  However, I think we need to ask ourselves whether we want our kids busy and doing something productive, or do we want them sitting at home playing video games all day.  Whether it is happening in your home or not, it is going on in a lot of places.  There are a lot of kids wasting away the summer.  Toss in the fact that not as many kids are holding down summer jobs as there once was and I would suggest that keeping kids as busy as we can is also keeping them out of trouble.  While it may stress us as parents, I believe that busy is a good thing!  Yes, there is a limit, but for the most part I believe that kids want to be busy and doing something.  We certainly don’t want them hanging out in that fella’s workshop!