Michael,

Very interesting post. I have been chatting about this issue at church quite a bit. Our Youth Pastor made the comment that our youth are more interested in humanitarian issues (social justice, environmentalism) but yet they are very selfish when it comes to giving their time, energy or gifts to support a cause. To take from Steve Roessler's All Things Workplace post today, their attitude isn't reflected in their actions.

We are talking about development here, and there are multiple pathways of development (two which you mention here: emotional, cognitive). Development occurs in stages, and if you skip one, you end up crippled later. (just as a baby who never crawls will have depth perception issues later in life.)

What I think has happened is that a majority of today's parents are at the green stage of development (from Spiral Dynamics model). It is very community oriented, egalitarian, interested in feelings and sharing. It eschews systems, power, competition, etc.

The problem is parents are trying to raise their kids into a green value set (viewing parents as friends, not authority figures; kids have equal power as adults in the family, everybody wins, competition is bad, etc.) without taking them through earlier steps (Spiral Dynamics blue stage) where they build discipline, the ability to deal with defeat, respect for authority, sacrificing for the greater good, work ethic, etc.

So although children have been taught to care about the greater good, they have not been given the building block skills to be able to contribute to the greater good.

We've done our kids a great disservice. A parent's job is not to do everything for and give everything to their children. (The helicopter model). It is the opposite. It is to teach them to do and earn for themselves so they can be productive members of society.

Regards,

Michelle Malay Carter

Michelle:

Thanks for taking the time to make your insightful comment. I think you are correct. Parents need to be about the business of parenting. If done correctly, the friendship will follow.

Michael,

I have looked for the newsletter you referenced but cannot find it. There is no Search Box on the Growing Leaders site. Arggg!

Can you point me to a copy of it?

Michelle

Michelle:

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be on their site yet. If it was or will be, I believe you would find it here:
http://www.growingleaders.com/index.php?llink

Michael

Wow. Great article. Thanks for sharing it with us. I have three kids, two of which are 13 and 14 (the other is 8).

I really liked the list of qualities. It gives me something to talk about at the dinner table this week!

Michael-
This is a great list, it is something I hope to refer back to as I raise my own son and daughter.

There is one addition I might make though. I think the pinnacle of maturity is the willingness and ability to take a risk. As a high school teacher and coach one of the choices I see kids faced with all the time is whether or not they are lazy or incapable. Ask a kid why they did not succeed and you are likely to hear them respond that they did not really try their hardest. "Oh, I am just lazy, I could do it if I really wanted to."

We have taught them to attribute their lack of success to some external factor other than their own abilities. They didn't take a risk if they didn't really want to do it in the first place. You see if they really give their best... and they fail... they would have to admit their shortcomings (#3 Humility), deal with criticism (#2), persevere (#1), try harder the next time (#7), and be thankful they ever had the opportunity at all (#5).

Thanks for the post it really got me thinking.

sw