In Praise Of The Ordinary Child Analysis

Upon reading Jeffrey Kluger’s In Praise of the Ordinary Child, I became quite intrigued. This article which was featured in the Times magazine, discusses parents thinking their child is extraordinary and causes the child to be at a disadvantage. When Kluger says, “Judging by the behavior of modern parents, we are living in a Lake Wobegon nation, where all children are above average, destined for the professional and educational 1%—if they work hard enough” he introduces the problem (2015, p.54). What this means is that society is telling children they can be the top 1% of the societal stratification if they only work hard enough. This ideology is seen especially within Western cultures where people can pull themselves up by their boot-straps

But it 's had some unintended consequences, ushering in the era of relentless praise, in which everyone gets a medal just for showing up.” (2015, p.58). I tend to agree with what Kluger says, because overpraising a kid can lead to them having an inflated ego believing they are special because they got a ribbon and then have consequences later on. As a society, the consensus has been to overpraise children. The act of overpraising I believe needs to be stopped since parents are overworking their kids to live the dreams they couldn’t when the numbers are against them. It’s not the child’s fault that the parents have inadequacies and want to live vicariously through their child’s success because the parents couldn’t achieve it themselves. This concept is demonstrated when Kluger says, “parents [begin] to reach a state of emotional enmeshment with their children. ‘Parents begin to see their children as part of their own identity’, he says, ‘and their kids ' ambitions become their own.’ ” (2015, p. 58). The enmeshment of a parent to their child is not healthy and should be