Practice makes Progress?

What the heck? I had to drop DQ's viola over at her mom's this morning so she could take it with her to school. When I get there, the TV is on the Disney Channel in the background and that is what the kids on the show were singing about. "Practice makes Progress."

You have got to be kidding me! What is this PC "Happy Happy Joy Joy" horse crap? Practice makes PERFECT! Kids should strive for perfection and not settle for mediocrity. If their school age hearts break because they don't achieve perfection, well too bad, so sad. Welcome to the real world. Try harder next time.

All we ever hear these days are excuses. My back hurts. My legs ache. I'm only nine. Kids these days are spoiled lazy and parents are to blame.

A perfect example of this are in the hockey leagues GB plays in. After one team gets a 6 goal lead, they stop putting goals up on the scoreboard. They don't want the kids to get their feelings hurt by receiving an old fashioned ass kicking. Instead they shut off the scoreboard and require the coach to play the kids at the end of the bench who refuse to practice and can't hold a stick. And we wonder why kids cant cope with anything these days. These kids feel entitled to play just because they are on the team. We should let kids fail when they deserve to fail so they can learn from it and eventually succeed. We should keep these kids on the bench and let them watch. Then maybe next time they will pay attention in practice. Or work on their skills at home. You know... make an EFFORT. Then maybe they would have earned some playing time.

Do you remember back to when you were a kid? When all the sports weren't pre-organized by the parents and kids were just assigned to a team? You know, when the kids picked the sides and those kids who weren't any good always got picked last? Or when you went to play ball at the park and if you couldn't catch then the kids would put you in the outfield, or simply not throw you the ball? Those were important life lessons. Ones we're not teaching kids anymore. We don't do that and it's extremely detrimental to these kids overall growth. Parents try and shield their kids from failure at all costs. But what these parents fail to consider is what is going to happen when these kids step out into the real world for the first time. How are these kids going to handle getting fired because they have never learned how to work hard for anything? No company is going to say "Aww, it's OK that our computers aren't fixed and we can't access our financial software. But we'll let you continue to work here because you did a good job showing up to work all week."

Political Correctness and the idea that children need to be coddled to the point that they are sheltered from life itself is a very real problem. But the good news is it is one we can do something about. We need to let our children experience failure. We need to teach them that their parents aren't always going to be around to solve all their problems. And more importantly, we need to teach them that mediocrity isn't a goal.

Practice makes progress, my ass.