Is this protecting children or just silliness! (reject, Earth, America)

[kateyes]

This is from an article on CNN.COM today:

The rule there, and at a growing number of America's schools, is that parties and play-dates shouldn't be discussed unless every child in the room is invited.
Gone are the days when a kindergartner dropped a handful of party invites in the classroom cubbyholes of their closest buddies. Today, if anyone is excluded the invitations can't be handed out at school.............
Take Valentine's Day: At some schools, a second-grader can't offer paper valentines or heart-shaped candies to a short list of pals and secret crushes anymore. They give cards to everyone or no one at all.....................Or sports: In many towns, scorekeeping no longer happens at soccer or softball games played by kids under 8 or 9. Win or lose, every player in the league gets a trophy at the season's end.

Is this a good idea--the concept being that by not excluding anyone--no-one ends up with hurt feelings or low self-esteem. Or does it actually end up creating a sense of entitlement--no matter how well I did nor didn't do the job I still get a prize?

This goes along a bit with a story I read about several months back, that had to do with eliminating assigning grades in schools. Are we doing our children any favors by not preparing them for the real world?

[ladyhawke]

Its NOT a good idea,rejection comes in many forms in the real world,that job you wanted,the guy who fancied your best friend,school is where you learn the very basic forms of rejection and hopefully develop coping skills,this kind of thing imo does more damage to a childs way of handling things than anything else.If someone doesn't want you at their party its tough but kids do learn that they are not top of the tree this way, its a very simplistic form of learning you cant always have what you what.

[evearael]

I thought I was overprotective! This is nonsense. If a child cannot handle small doses of rejection early in life, how on earth do they learn to cope so they can handle the large doses of adolescence and adulthood? A child should learn to enjoy the games and do the best they can. They should learn to be a good winner and loser. There could be a good reason your child is excluded from a party: the other parents may be too poor to invite everyone or maybe they just don't get along with the other child.

[Ryan2065]

Heh, people are too overprotective today...

Here is a link to the full article
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/08/08....ap/index.html

[Faint]

It seems more practical to just seal kids in bubble wrap and send them into the world. Just another example of the wussification of America's youth.

[Ryan2065]

I sent this article to my girlfriend and she replied with this link.. its quite interesting

http://www.psychologytoday.com/artic...12-000010.html

Basically talks about the effects of being over protective =)

Im only on page 3 so far (of 8) but it is really interesting!

[Booko]

Originally Posted by kateyes

This is from an article on CNN.COM today:

This isn't far off the same rules we had in elementary school back in the early 60s.

Oh, we could "discuss" birthday parties, or anything else, on the playground, because the teachers weren't within earshot most of the time.

Do it at any other time, and you'd be sent to the office.

re: Grades -- yup, we should keep them. If we don't, then there is less incentive for some to bother to improve, and no warning for others that they aren't getting the material and need some help.

[Ðanisty]

When I was in elementary school, you gave valentine's cards to every person in your class. I don't think that's anything new. However, when exactly are you supposed to invite your friends to a party if you can't give them the invitation at school? Why would anyone invite their whole class to a party? A party isn't about equality or being nice to everyone. You get to decide who is there...it's not even a school event. I can't imagine being told I had to invite people I didn't like to my birthday party...

About the grades, what exactly would that do for anyone? You're going to get evaluated when you go out into the real world and get a job anyway.

[Terrywoodenpic]

Children Know better than any one else who their friends are.
nor do they invite children their parents do not wish to be at the party.
This is state interference in family life.

[Circle_One]

I'm on the fence for this.

I think it's ridiculous to eliminate score keeping for younger kids.

However, I do think the birthday invitation and valentine's card things are a good idea.

For those of you who are against it, imagine it was your kid coming home from school crying because THEY were the ones who didn't get invited to ANY party, while everyone else did, or the majority of the other kids did, or having to listen to all their classmates discussing a birthday party on the weekend in which they all had so much fun, but your kid wasn't invited to. Or imagine it was your kids who come home from school on Valentines or Christmas with NO cards, while every other kid got one. Wouldn't it hurt you to see them hurt?

Kids can be cruel, you know that. So you must know that in every class, there's at least one kid that's ostricized from the rest of the class. How do you think that kid feels when he or she is never invited to any party or never receives any Valentines cards? How do you think the parents feel when their kid comes home depressed because of this? Not fun, right?

Do you honestly think that THAT is good for the child?

I can't imagine how that could possibly help the child. I think it's disgusting.

When I was growing up, I made sure, when I had a birthday party, to invite every kid in my class, so no one would feel left out. Because I could imagine how much it must have hurt to be the only one left out.

But that's just the way I was brought up.