Ran across this article today and thought it might be applicable here. Some folks might see more of themselves in the author than I do, but I saw enough of myself in him to give pause.
Here's the link:
http://kotaku.com/5972316/all-my-life-ive-been-told-i-was-special-it-was...
Oh man, I don't relate to a lot of that article though I fully appreciate that many, many of the children of the 90's forward do, I very much recognize that I'm guilty of this: "Failures were justified and assigned an appropriate cause that absolved me of any wrongdoing." I'm so good at it.
Acceptance. When I am disturbed, it is because a person, place, thing, or situation is unacceptable to me. I find no serenity until I accept my life as being exactly the way it is meant to be. Nothing happens in God’s world by mistake. Acknowledge the problem, but live the solution!
Great article. When I was a kid they didn't do any of these things. I always thought we got a rough deal; now I can see it wasn't so bad after all--since we weren't taught to be special, we were taught that if we wanted to make it we had to work hard; no one got a free lunch.
Most people my age (grew up in the 60s and yes I do remember it) wanted to pass on more encouragement to our kids.
But, I think people got confused about what encouragement actually is. Instead of encouraging people when they did real things well, the parents/teachers put on a goofy happy face excessively embellishing everything a kid did. Kids know when things are phoney and unrealistic. That doesn't help anyone. And is frustrating to parents and teachers alike.
Us parents forget we are raising adults, not children.
I was lied to also. I came from the generation where Santa Claus and the tooth fairy were real and when I was 5 and found out I'd been lied to, I didn't believe anyone ever again.
Luckily, we are all different ages and experiences, different reasons for gaming and recovering from excessive gaming, and now we get to grow up all over again, doing it the right way.