A college bribing scandal. Parents who want their children to succeed but can’t let their children succeed on their own merits. Parents who want to plan their lives for their children. They want their children’s lives to be perfect and believe they know what is best for them. This is where helicopter parenting has landed us, on rickety pedestals.
I once worked as a Nanny for a family where one of the children was taking Martial Arts classes. He was getting ready to compete in a competition. The Mother couldn’t handle the meltdown that she knew would ensue if her son didn’t win the trophy. For the upcoming competition, to stop her son from feeling like a failure and melting down, she had a trophy made just in case he lost. She could present it to him instead. I remember thinking, “What are you going to do when he loses a job? Or when a girlfriend breaks up with him? Are you going to have a new one waiting in the wings? Will you spend your whole life following him around trying to make sure he never suffers any disappointments?”
“Aunt Becky”
Her fictional name is now infamous. She is someone many of us grew up looking up to. With the reboot of Full House to Fuller House, we have now been given the opportunity to relearn the lesson of not putting people on a pedestal. My daughter LOVES Fuller House and I LOVED Full House when I was a kid. Lori Loughlin plays someone good and wholesome in most of the body of her work as an actress. We tend to put famous people up on a pedestal and think they can do no wrong. We buy into the idea that the character that they are playing is the “real” person. But alas, they are mere mortals just like you and me, who make wrong choices just like us.
As we come to the knowledge that someone we look up to, has fallen off their pedestal, I think it’s important to take a moment to spend time with our children and teach them about how people are just people. We don’t belong on pedestals. We crave perfection and want to believe that a magical fairy tale is possible.
But the problem with pedestals is that they are tipsy things. They are easily tipped over and mere mortals don't belong on them. We are too clumsy. Click To TweetSo instead, let’s back off as parents and let our kids make decisions, fail and learn from their mistakes after we have taught them to the best of our ability. And let’s teach them to look for people who inspire, and help others, but not to place them on pedestals.
A friends child had a sports day last year and there were no losers, they were all winners… to me that makes races and competitions redundant. People need to know what it feels like to lose, to not be the best at everything otherwise they get no drive to reach for the stars!
Thank you for sharing this with us at #TriumphantTales. I hope to see you back tomorrow.
I very much agree. I think there can occasionally be a time and a place when there are no losers but generally, I believe kids need to understand how to handle themselves and work with other people when there are things that don’t go their way and nothing I know of teaches them that better than losing and having to congratulate the winner.
Teaching children to deal with failure is an essential part of parenthood. Resilience and persistence are crucial to becoming individuals with a healthy outlook on life. Thanks for linking up with #globalblogging
I agree. And I want my kids to be healthy.
This is so true, losing and making mistakes are how we all learn and we can’t wrap our children in cotton wool forever #twinklytuesday
Thanks for stopping by and reading.
So very true Calleen. And the sooner we do this the better. They will come to realize that life is not a bed of roses but that does not mean we ought to give up.
I think if we think life is a bed of roses we are going to go through life screaming that we’ve been wronged and asking where our roses are.
I couldn’t agree more. My mum and dad always tried to steer me in the direction they wanted for me, not necessarily the one I wanted for myself. I have really learned from that which is why it is so important to me to let my own daughters follow their own paths. And if that means making mistakes along the way then so be it! I will help them to learn from it. #triumphanttales
I think making mistakes is all part of the process. You learn from them and do better, and then you become better.
Sooner or later, they will fall down.
They do as we are all human. That’s why none of us belong up there.
I once had a friend who used to say exactly the same thing as the title of this post. The whole affair is so sad and disappointing.
It really is, and the children are going to be affected the most. Both because of the academic issues, it may cause, the legal issues, and the poor example of their parents.
You raise an interesting point, that while we accept people are flawed, we often want our ‘heros’ not to be human, and not to be flawed, and to be better than we are… I wonder why we are more disappointed when it’s someone we admire? Good post.
Thank you. I think we assume that they have conquered the things we haven’t yet and expect them to be perfect because of that. Also, that we deeply want to believe that perfection is possible.
Thanks for the reminder to not elevate people higher than Jesus.
Any time. It was a good reminder for me too.
I totally agree…we need to back off and let our children fail and figure out a way to make the changes to be successful the next time. Love this post!
Thank you! I appreciate it.
Pedestals are pretty lonely places to stand, too.
So thankful that, before God, we are all standing on the same level.
Agreed. Thanks for stopping by and reading.
Calleen, what a sad message the mom of the family you nannied was sending her son. No one learns to walk, literally and figuratively, without taking a few spills.
I agree. It made me sad for what he was going to go through in the future if he didn’t learn about disappointment when he was little.