“YORKTOWN - The attorney for the Billy Fischer family, whose daughter was cut from the Yorktown High School junior varsity cheerleading squad, says her clients have no other option but to sue the school district.
One alternative, of course might be to teach your daughter that life is unfair and that she’s not always going to get everything she wants…
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Or this update on the move to bubble-wrap our children:
“Principals of at least eight year-round Wake County schools, worried about how schoolchildren will cope with scorching summer heat, want to raise thousands of dollars to erect large canopies and shelters over playgrounds.
A handful of Wake schools have the shelters, which are more common in places such as Las Vegas. At least one has erected a 40-foot-by-60-foot shelter that covers the entire playground at a cost of $25,000. Even less extravagant shelters can still cost $7,500.
Because, we obviously, can’t allow kids to actually play outside in the sun, that would be too, well, too much like what we’ve been doing for several thousand years now. And hasn’t anybody there ever heard of trees?
The good news is that some educators get it:
"Children are resilient," said Debra Pearce, a former assistant principal at a year-round school and now a principal of Hodge Road Elementary School in Knightdale, one of the converted schools. "When they're at home, they're playing outside for hours."
But some parents want shelters.
Obviously, they are the kind of parents who need the “50 Rules.”
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Blame Mr. Rogers?
Fred Rogers, the late TV icon, told several generations of children that they were "special" just for being whoever they were. He meant well, and he was a sterling role model in many ways. But what often got lost in his self-esteem-building patter was the idea that being special comes from working hard and having high expectations for yourself.
Now Mr. Rogers, like Dr. Spock before him, has been targeted for re-evaluation. And he's not the only one. As educators and researchers struggle to define the new parameters of parenting, circa 2007, some are revisiting the language of child ego-boosting. What are the downsides of telling kids they're special? Is it a mistake to have children call us by our first names? When we focus all conversations on our children's lives, are we denying them the insights found when adults talk about adult things?
The truth is, our entitlement problem has many roots, including:
• Indulgent parenting. Several readers argued that our kids are more capable than we think. Why do we make their beds and pour their juice long after they could do it themselves?...
Susan Lewis, who teaches at University of Maryland Eastern Shore, calls the cellphone "the world's longest umbilical cord." At her school, when students don't like their grades, some come up after class, hand over their cellphones and say, "My mom wants to talk to you."
Psychologist David Walsh says entitled parents and kids suffer from DDD -- "discipline deficit disorder" -- with symptoms such as impatience and inflated expectations…
Some colleges are also combating young people's sense of entitlement. At Loyola University Chicago's Graduate School of Business, Mary Burns teaches a course modeled after her book "Entitled to What? A Reality Check for the Generation Entering Corporate America."
• Consumer culture. TV shows such as MTV's "My Super Sweet 16" celebrate acquisitive lifestyles. Meanwhile, advertising fosters entitlement….
• The self-esteem movement. In 1986, California created a state task force on self-esteem. Schools nationwide later adopted "everybody's a winner" philosophies. One teacher told me that her superiors advised her to tell students that she liked their smiles, or the way they sat up straight, rather than focusing on, say, their failed spelling tests…
Personally, I’m willing to cut the late Mr. Rogers some slack, since there are so many likelier suspects…