Making mountains out of molehills

I read this blog from the St Louis Jewish Light...

And I think the author is both right and wrong.  Or, more accurately, her conclusion is correct were her premises accurate, but from my experience, her premises are wrong.

You see, she feels parents are doing their children a disservice by trying to remove challenges from their life paths.  And I agree with that. I think challenge and failure are teaching tools.  Children need to learn it's okay to not always get what they want.

However, I don't think that parents are simply trying to make life easy for their children.

The author states that a child's mistakes don't mean much in the long run.  And this is where my present day experience runs counter to what seems like common sense...

A child's mistakes shouldn't mean much in the long run, but these days, they certainly seem to.

You see, where I live, I hear from parents that it is of utmost importance for their children to be able to go to a good college.  Sounds like a good thing to me...  But to do that, you need to do well in high school, and the students who are best prepared for college go to the best high schools in the area.  In order to get into one of these top high schools, you must attend one of the correct feeder middle schools.  In order to get into one of these feeder middle schools you must be chosen in a selection process which includes a look at your academic and behavior records throughout elementary school.

Therefore, a child's mistakes, at the time that they should be making them and learning from them, could cost them opportunities down the line...  They could be penalized in their academic and socioeconomic development in a way that no child could possibly understand...  Sorry honey, you can't watch cartoons now, you need to do your homework because your future employer is going to want to see a diploma from a good college.  What 7 year old is going to understand that level of cause and effect?

Of course a parent is going to want to hand-hold a child through their school years.  Especially when you sure as hell bet other parents are doing the same, if not more, in order to ensure their child's spot on the yellow-brick-road...

It's not that parents don't trust that their children can do it, but it's that the price of failure seems so high, can a parent risk having a child do their homework without help?

I can't really blame the parents, who are looking at today's economy and feeling the need to help their children get the best start they can.

But what have we become as a society, when a child's academics and behavior in grade school can effect his or her employability as an adult?

We are raising a generation that won't be able to handle challenges, both emotionally and cognitively.  At what point does that translate into needing a PhD to be hired for an entry level minimum wage job?