Hypersensitivity...

[Strangler Lewis]

Originally Posted by tracilicious

In my particular circle of parenting friends, none of us punish or reward or engage our kids in competition (they're all only three or four) and they are all excellent kids that are faced with disappointment and handle it pretty gracefully.

Let's get down to cases here. Are we talking JW? Waldorf? Single mothers in housing projects? I assume not the latter, though when I did live among the projects during law school, I saw a lot of well-adjusted looking little kids of whom little was expected and who seemed to be handling their lot well. Then they grew up.

If Waldorf, the Waldorf parents I know obsess, worry and fetishize their child's development more than any other parents I've met.

I can't really say whether I agree with you without a sense of what kind of disappointments you expect your kids to be able to endure. Knowing a little something of your background, I am suspecting that they are fairly minimal. The sense I get from your post is not that the kids are learning to handle disappointment well; it's that they are learning that there is not much in this worldy world worth aspiring to or being excited about. (In the Enneagram, that's a type 5--the unenlightened Buddha. It's what I test as.)

I will agree that competition and performances for three and four year-olds are to be avoided. They don't get it, and it's an f*****' bore for the adults. A photo op to be sure, but not worth the weekly shlep.