I was motivated to write this post after a student of mine arrived to class 45 minutes late with a note from his mother excusing it because – get this! – his teeth hurt. I’ve heard a lot of creative reasons over the years, but this was a first. This young man will be able to vote in roughly a year. He also likes to skip class. I knew what was up. I recommended that he not show his future bosses notes like this from his mother. “In fact,” I said, “you might not want to show them any notes from your mother.”
I am so grateful that Hara Estroff Marano wrote A Nation of Wimps five years ago. As an educator, it gave me the courage to stand by my expectations and principles when parents came in to negotiate marks or question my intentions. It gave me the courage to say what I knew was intuitively true: “Adversity, you know, can actually build character if we teach Johnny to view it positively instead of negatively. Why don’t we make an effort to show him how a lesson can be learned from this little setback?”
Now a new documentary produced by the CBC has come out showcasing the same ideas. It’s called Hyper Parents, Coddled Kids and it’s very enlightening. To view the trailer click the image below. To watch the whole documentary, click here.
