Are kids more narcisstic now than ever, and why?

[Magus]

I have had the same experiences. I am an assistant Tang Soo Do instructor and I see this all the time. Parents get upset when their kids don't get to test. We have 5 schools and three of them have taken to giving the kids more belts; that is, instead of having to wait to get from white to yellow, they give the kids a camo belt half way to make them feel like they are making progress. The other two schools don't do this. I have found that students who come from the schools that don't bend and give camo belts have much better students.

This ticks me off as well. It's infuriating that little kids, some only about 8, can get easier versions of skills tests for black belt and such. In my opinion, if you're not big/strong enough to earn a real black belt, you shouldn't earn a special kid's black belt that automatically upgrades when you get older. I especially get annoyed because it seems everyone and their grandmother can get a black belt in one or two years. Remember when people used to dedicate most of their lives to getting that good?

[Cairber]

This ticks me off as well. It's infuriating that little kids, some only about 8, can get easier versions of skills tests for black belt and such. In my opinion, if you're not big/strong enough to earn a real black belt, you shouldn't earn a special kid's black belt that automatically upgrades when you get older. I especially get annoyed because it seems everyone and their grandmother can get a black belt in one or two years. Remember when people used to dedicate most of their lives to getting that good?

I know what you mean. It took me 7 years to get my black belt, but at some of our schools there are very young kids who got theirs, yet their knowledge of the forms is pitiful. The other thing is that the schools that don't give kids their black belt just stop them at red, and they end up being a red belt for 3 years or whatever. They create their own problems that way. They let them go swifty from white to red and then hault them for years on end, so, obviously, the kids are going to get annoyed. They build them up to think it's a swift path from belt to belt and then they are red for years.

[Teebs]

I know what you mean. It took me 7 years to get my black belt, but at some of our schools there are very young kids who got theirs, yet their knowledge of the forms is pitiful. The other thing is that the schools that don't give kids their black belt just stop them at red, and they end up being a red belt for 3 years or whatever. They create their own problems that way. They let them go swifty from white to red and then hault them for years on end, so, obviously, the kids are going to get annoyed. They build them up to think it's a swift path from belt to belt and then they are red for years.

My karate club has the official policy of if you take your black belt before 18 then you have to grade again at 18 for black belt. That being said, I got mine at 18 and in the 9 or so years I've been training no one younger than that was graded to it.

[salm]

That's very interesting, and it agrees with something I've noticed: nobody who is *actually* intelligent or skilled seems to care about crap like intelligence tests or people saying 'wow you're smart'. It's ironic that people apparently have to be told that effort and study and experience are more important than 'being smart', though. However, the media often portrays those of high intelligence as all-round success stories who can assimilate anything in seconds, which is absurd. The smartest guy I know still struggles with totally new complex concepts, and he's not interested in people saying how 'smart' he is - he's interested in learning and skills.

I wonder if the same mechanism is behind that as behind the fact that people with lower jobs will correct you if you don´t say the foramly correct term of this job while people who actually have good jobs don´t care about it at all.
In German for example nursery school teachers are called "Kindergärtnerin" (kindergardener). But the formaly correct term is "Erzieherin" (educator). And every single Kindergärnerin i´ve met will go ballistic if you call them Kindergärtnerin. On the other hand i know people who, for example, have a Phd in mathematics and will tell people that they´re a computer guy.

[Junghalli]

Arm chair theory, so take with salt. A lot of parents are trying to life through their kids. Sure they have good jobs, provide food and a house fore their family, but in the materialistic society that has taken root in the US; they don't see this as enough. Since they can't go out and get that new Porsche or whatever, maybe their kid can. In their mind the only way for that to happen is if their kids are number 1 on everything. They can't let something get in the way of that. Ref calls a foul on little Susie during soccer, dad starts screaming at the ref and tries to browbeat them into taking back the call. Susie got a B in math, scream at the teacher that it's their fault for not teaching Susie correctly, she is plainly an A++ student and the teacher is too stupid to see this.

This may be the case sometimes but I think (although I can't prove) more often it has to do with parents not knowing where to draw the line between protecting their kids and overprotecting them. It's natural for a caring parent to want to help their kids when they fumble. The problem is some of them don't know the difference between constructive help (the kind that lets the child learn from their mistakes) and insulating them from the effects of their own mistakes. If their child is failing math instead of trying to make them do better they'll try to get the school to lower the bar.

I wonder if the same mechanism is behind that as behind the fact that people with lower jobs will correct you if you don´t say the foramly correct term of this job while people who actually have good jobs don´t care about it at all.

I think it's a question of self-confidence. People who have low self-confidence tend to be very much into appearances, because the less confidence one has in ones own self-worth the more one needs the praise of others to feel good about oneself (there can, of course, be too much self-confidence as well...).