Korean Job Discussion Forums

[laogaiguk]

Should we let kids feel stung?

[jinju]

We are raising a generation of wimps. God have mercy on us. Or rather on those idiots. Maybe Tom Cruise is right? Pychologists should be lined up against a wall and shot. Nork style.

[happeningthang]

[ajuma]

I raised 2 boys and both were on winning teams and losing teams. When they won, great! When they lost...well, you tried hard, but they were better. Maybe next time.

Sorry folks, but everyone is NOT equal and the sooner kids learn that lesson the better!! You can take pride in the fact that you competed, that you did your best. Just because someone did better doesn't take away from the fact that YOU did the best that you could!

As for inviting a whole class to a birthday party? How many parents could afford THAT????

[mithridates]

[laogaiguk]

[vox]

I think it's a response to transfering competitive events (e.g. soccer) down to increasingly younger ages, and discovering some of what gets handed down isn't necessary below a certain age, and then some dummy trying to unilaterally declare a new evil to be banished.

I just saw a Korean soccer match two mornings ago with 4 and 5 year olds running around. They looked like they were having fun, but I would hope that kids that young would not be thinking that trying is only good if you win. For very young ages, I liked the idea in the article of giving trophies to all participants. Roughly after the age of 6, it should be fine to expose them to competition.

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]

[mithridates]

[RACETRAITOR]

It should be interesting to see how a generation that does not know how to cope with pain, loss, hard work, or rejection will develop.

[cosmicgirlie]

What is happening with today's kids is parents are raising toxic children or pampered children. We are witnessing the Rx generation. Children are increasingly becoming more of a behavioural challenge at an earlier age because parents don't have the skills to raise their children. Any generational/familiar help via their extended relatives is becoming scarce with the mobility of people.

The education system in North America is set up for people in the 1950's. It has removed the arts/music/physical education component from the curriculum. It also focus' too much on testing instead of teaching children.

Kids are also becoming extremely lazy. They would rather veg out in front of the tele or their computer/game system at the early age instead of getting outside and enjoying their imaginative side of things. Unfortunately kids are consumers now, which has taken away any sense of imagination play. Instead of making a plane out of a cardboard box they have the plane wings they can attach to their back with a sound box. Kids don't know how to play.

We all know how the diet of these children is affecting them. They rarely have home cooked meals. Everything comes from a box for them. This phenomenon always baffled me whenever I worked in a group home or custody setting with kids. I love the kitchen, I love cooking great home cooked meals. I was raised to appreciate the kitchen and fresh food. Whenever I cooked a home cooked meal for the kids they would turn their nose at it. They would rather have Kraft Dinner or Frozen Dinners instead of home cooked meals.

There is no sense of community for kids today either. They live in fear of the "stranger". Of all the kidnappings of children that happen a small percentage is stranger kidnapping. It usually boils down to a parent that kidnapps the child to punish the other parent. Because of this fear of strangers kids won't go outside to play. So they sit in their houses watching TV becoming consumers instead of reading a book and learning about the world of imagination.

Can you tell I'm pretty passionate about this kind of thing. I agree, there are a lot of psychologists/sociologist/social workers out there who dont have the first clue about how to raise children. They write crap books and get spots on talk shows which is damaging. However, there are some great books out there that talk about the Toxic Child and the Pampered Child. It touches on the how to deal with what I've always called "The Emperor Syndrome." One of them is "The Pampered Child Syndrome--Dr. Maggie Mamen" and the other is "Toxic Childhood Syndrome--Sue Palmer". I know I know...books that could be damaging--but as someone who reads up on this stuff these seem to be exactly what I've felt as a front line staff in some places. Hence my little "breaks" away from the field via ESL gigs here and there. You really can only handle so much of the little emperor!

[ajuma]

cosmicgirlie: You are SO right! I'm just finishing up a summer camp (this can apply to both Korean and Western kids) and 99% of the kids will be happy to go home because they can play computer games and watch TV!! What happened to "Go outside and play"????

[mithridates]

[cosmicgirlie]

[Roch]