New Program Seeks to Help Children Suffering from Overly Supportive Parents
NEWBURYPORT, MA — Martha Walsh stands in front of a group of students, brow furrowed, shaking her head in disappointment for 5 uncomfortable minutes. The middle schoolers have done nothing wrong, explained Walsh, who holds a PhD in Educational Psychology. She performs this ritual daily as part of a radical new program designed to help children diagnosed with an overly supportive upbringing. It is estimated that 1 in 8 kids suffer from the condition, which researchers say can leave them with a severe lack of ambition and chronic complacency.
“These kids are coming from homes with a non-competitive environment, typically only-children, with most of them knowing nothing but complete, unconditional love”, said Walsh. “Our goal is to place some conditions in there and provide these kids with the tools for success — namely a motivating fear of failure.”
Dr. Dan Pilson, who heads the program, explained that most of the children he works with crave the standards others have placed on them naturally. “Of course, we can never replace their real parents, whose icy disregard would engender a deep, pathological need for approval”, said Pilson, feeding a student’s pastel drawing into a paper shredder as she looked on, sobbing. “But we are equipping them with the basic tools to understand the difference between real achievement and frivolous back-patting.”
“Our work isn’t easy. The only sense of direction most of these kids get their entire lives is to just, ‘Do what you love’”, offered Walsh, after hanging a large sign near the entrance of the school announcing the names and phone numbers of students who had failed a recent test. “Do you know how hard it is to tell a 13-year-old that masturbation isn’t a viable career path?”
Pilson emphasized the urgent need for programs like his by pointing to the continuing drop in American educational rankings. “This is a serious problem for US competition as a whole. Raw disappointment numbers are trending downwards in our country, while India and China continue to lead the world in unreasonable parental expectations. What you see there is an entire generation of young people desperate to impress their loved ones. We need to try harder to remind US millennials that they are letting everyone down.”
