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By Mel Rothenburger

Armchair Mayor

ROTHENBURGER: We’re making things way too easy for our kids

Jun 22, 2019 | 12:15 AM

WE’RE RUINING OUR KIDS, turning them into a bunch of confused, pampered wimps.

We fight their fights in sports, in their education, in every aspect of their social development. We give them no credit, and it’s not fair to them.

At a youth baseball game near Denver this week, a brawl broke out among parents over an umpire’s call. The players were seven years old, the umpire 13. The moms and dads stormed the field and started throwing punches at each other.

In Canada, we prefer to get ridiculous at minor hockey games instead of baseball but the root cause is the same — getting too wrapped up in what should be our kids’ business, not ours. We make everything about us, not them.

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We’ve been working on it for a long time. I’m convinced it began when we came up with the term “level playing field” in the mid-1970s. Suddenly, everybody wanted a level playing field. God forbid we should ever have to go uphill.

Even more than for ourselves, we wanted (and continue to want) a level playing field for our children. We went from phonics to Dick and Jane (“See Dick. See Dick run”) to whole-word and whole-language and other “systems” that were supposed to relieve our little darlings of having to learn pesky syllables and the ever-annoying alphabet.

The result, of course, is a generation of grammatical deficients who can’t post a literate troll comment to save their lives.

Excelling at anything became unacceptable as we bowed down to the level playing field. Letter grades might hurt their feelings (“Mel needs to apply himself in Arithmetic”). Let’s just talk. And it seems long ago when we started handing out “Participation” ribbons (“You’re all winners”).

The beat goes on — it gets goofier and goofier. Did you know it’s a bad thing for a kid to have a best friend? This isn’t just in one school, it’s happening all over.

If one kid has a best friend, apparently, another’s feelings might be hurt. Little Prince George isn’t allowed to have a best friend in the school he attends. At the age of five, he’s being conditioned to not have a best friend he can confide in, play with, or go on adventures with.

Why? Because we must be inclusive. Inclusivity is what it’s all about. Nobody must be left out. We mustn’t allow negative feelings to rear their ugly heads. Everyone will be happier and more well-adjusted if they don’t have a best friend; so goes the rationale.

Then there’s the hand-raising issue. What happens if a smart kid keeps raising his or her hand, and a less advanced one doesn’t? What if a kid is just shy?

The answer, ban the raising of hands in classrooms. There are alternatives. Teachers can make a point of calling on kids who don’t raise their hands. Hmmmm. That might cause all kinds of problems. One creative method is to have the entire class write down the answer, then have all of them raise their hands at the same time. Sounds like communism.

Banning hand-raising, say the experts, makes everyone do better.

But this next one is my favourite: mental health days for kids. Earlier this year, an Ontario mom and freelance writer stirred up some discussion when she acknowledged she gives her children days off from school to recharge even when they aren’t physically ill.

“In our house, we call them mental-health days and they’re an important part of our family life,” wrote Kelly Pedro on the CBC Parents web page.

It shouldn’t be surprising that mental-health days for children are becoming popular. Their millennial parents grew into entitlement and “work-life balance” and are now teaching it to their kids.

The days when employees and now school kids dragged themselves out of bed and got the job done are apparently over. Don’t feel like getting up? That’s OK, sweetheart, take the day off and play in your room.

I can see it coming now. “Mel, you sir, are an idiot, a dinosaur. What about the kids who are shy, or developmentally challenged, or have low self-esteem, or are diagnosed with behavioural issues?”

Certainly, we need to look after them. But our mistake is that we’ve put everybody into the same pot. I’m talking about being over-protective, and over-doing it. In so doing, we rob our kids of opportunities to learn about life.

Do we really need to make every social decision for them? Must it all be easy?

Life is hard. Not everybody’s nice all the time. Showing up isn’t enough. We can’t all win, we can’t all be anything we want to be if only we dare to dream. (I know I’ll never be a Toronto Raptor and I’m good with it.)

We need to butt out. Let’s give our kids some credit. Let them deal with some bad calls at the plate. They can sort it out by themselves; they really can.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.