Quote:
Originally Posted by Caveat Emperor
I think the overall point is that, while it's good to put kids in an environment that allows them to maximize their potential and succeed, at some point the big bad world comes a-calling.
It's a cruel, tough, and generally unforgiving world out there. You're constantly being judged -- by potential employers, bosses, members of the opposite sex, clients, etc. You are rarely the best at anything you do, you're frequently placed into competition with people who are as smart/qualified or moreseo than you are, and any "allowances" or "considerations" made are generally made not on merit but on cronyism or nepotism. Life just isn't a fair place.
So, is it good for a kid to take "F" grades and keep dealing with it? No, probably not. But, is it OK to keep adjusting things so that the child keeps getting "A" and "B" grades against artificially inferior competition? Maybe not. Parents know their own children best and often know how best to get the most out of their children -- but sometimes (especially lately) it seems that the world has become so obssessed with letting children succeed that it has forgotten to teach them how to fail.
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I think kids figure that stuff all on their own. I can tell you they start dealing with that amongst themselves in preschool. It's human nature. Nobody's trying to tell these kids they can't lose.
The more I read about this, the more it sounds like the dispute is as much between team sponsors as it is about the kid. Those articles Roy linked to mention the team sponsor, Will Power, almost as much as the kid. The league has even offered to help the kid get on a select team or a travel team to play with kids at his skill level. I almost want to say that the other team in the league that was mentioned was last year's champ and the Will Power team went out and found themselves a ringer. The parents probably have some relationship with the sponsor that encouraged them to put the kid on that team. Other teams, especially last year's champ, knowing the kid is a ringer, complained and threatened to quit the league, so the league tried to step in and force a solution that ended up making a hash of things. This kid of stuff has been going on in youth baseball since I played and probably longer. It's just that we didn't have the internet to make a national case out of it.