NO CONSEQUENCES IMPEDES SUCCESS

NO CONSEQUENCES IMPEDES SUCCESS                                                   2/15/17

By Domenick J. Maglio PhD. Traditional Realist

Many parents, teachers and other authority figures view consequences as cruel. They believe admonishing is harmful to a child’s self esteem. These arbitrary rewards or punishments stigmatize a child who is not doing well. According to many modern parents and teachers’ school should be fun not a fierce competition between students. All children are unique and should not be placed on the same scale to be measured on different academic and behavioral skills and abilities.

This anti-evaluating phenomenon is taking place in sports, the workplace and the classroom. It has resulted in delusional students and eventually delusional adults. Millennials have been conditioned to believe that their performance is much better than it actually is.  These high “false self concepts” are understandable when you examine our modern culture. Many of them participate in equal playing time in activities even if they possessed no talent or desire to practice the skills necessary to improve.  This anti training and anti competition by some authority figures does appease parents and students and works to avoid many unpleasant conflicts that arise from an honest assessment of a child’s ability and actual performance. The avoidance of straightforward evaluation of positive and negative skills and behavior leads to delusional thinking in these students.

In the work place many of these young adults are under many employment misconceptions derived from the over inflated evaluation in education and business. Self-important academic professors who do not have a clue about the world of business often foster the exaggerated self-appraisal. These academic “geniuses” think once a student is granted a degree they are ready to do a job better than a person who has been in that position for many years with first hand knowledge. These professors naïve arrogance is unfortunately passed on to the unsuspecting students. These students believe and expect to start at the top of their profession with inflated salaries.

It is understandable that parents who themselves went through this weak, non-existing evaluative process would think that their children should be handled in school in a more gentle, kinder egalitarian manner. They want more of the same inflated evaluation and even greater compassion than they were afforded. They feel and behave that their precious child should not experience the suffering of failure in any form or arena. Little do they realize that this will leave their child unprepared and unable to deal with real life experiences. The coddling of anyone leaves him or her less able to deal with the harshness of reality.

Modern parents seem to be oblivious to the reality that only when a person works hard to gain a skill or important knowledge does he experience a sense of accomplishment. This challenge and successful overcoming of obstacles enriches an individual’s competence that increases the student’s self worth and confidence.

Failure in anything is the first step in propelling a person to a higher level of effort that produces improvement and eventual mastery. The surmounting of adversity makes a person realize that as long as you focus on a problem long enough it can be solved. They realize they will arrive at the answer in their own unique way.

Parents, teachers, coaches and other authority figures are there to demonstrate, correct procedures of proceeding to do the project, motivate and inspire a person to continue to persist until they succeed.  They point out little advances in a student’s struggle to improve. They might reward them with praise by pointing out the incremental progress the student is making. At times when a student is stuck the authority figure might note that they are failing to do the best they could. They might gain their attention by punishing the student by giving the “cold shoulder” or not allowing them to participate in an activity that others have earned.

The pain of sitting on the sidelines, receiving a failing grade or being held back in a grade or having to repeat a grade in the long run is often more compassionate than not telling the truth which enables a person to lie to himself. Shocking a person into action hurts in the short run but may be a great lesson to awaken a student to his destructive habits and delusional thinking.

All authority figures from parents to all forms of loving, caring people should realize deceiving or ignoring another is a mean act. Giving a person a true assessment of their behavior or performance is a very beneficial one. Everyone needs honest feedback to improve and learn where he stands in order to get a better grasp of where to put his energies to improve.

Consequences, especially natural ones, teach a person self-reliance. When an individual desires something, he needs to persevere through hard work until he earns it. This realization that striving to overcome obstacles enables a person to become the best he can be. It was the American Way and strong appropriate consequences will bring it back.

Domenick Maglio, PhD. is a columnist carried by various newspapers, an author of several books and owner/director of Wider Horizons School, a college prep program. Dr. Maglio is an author of weekly newspaper articles, INVASION WITHIN  and a new just published book, entitled, IN CHARGE PARENTING In a PC World. You can visit Dr. Maglio at www.drmaglio.blogspot.com.