Declining Student Resilience

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Denis Waitley is an American motivational speaker, writer and consultant. Waitley comments, “the greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence” (Waitley). In other words, Waitley believes that it is important to show children responsibility and the privilege of being independent. This connects to the issue of the decline of student resilience due to lack of responsibility and the outcome of children’s actions over the years.Waitley seems to disagree with parents lacking the ability to teach kids responsibility. In fact, in Psychology Today’s article “Declining Student Resilience; A Serious Problem for Colleges”,research shows that the decline of student resilience is caused by the increase …show more content…

They think that schools should dumb down the curriculum because school has become stressful and the outcome is not helpful at all for the students with interactions between other students or even reacting to grades. They are contradicting their argument because college curriculum or the school/on campus environment is not the main cause for students to be diagnosed with different illnesses. They contradict themselves because teachers have been cornered over the years by parents and students for the increase in handholding and school work for home . This is not something new to the world, but society responds to this topic as some shock. Yes, students get stressed from school, but we should not take a small amount of stress into a mental disorder or blame the teachers. Back then doctors were aware of mental illnesses, but no one took them as seriously as they do now. This proves that mental illnesses were not just caused by colleges and curriculum. “Students need to “Buck up, this is college,” and realize that their teachers and other faculty at the campus along with their own parents should not sit around all day making sure they live in a perfect world where nothing bad happens” (Psychology …show more content…

Ultimately, what is at stake here is the fact that parents are making excuses for students who do not want to work hard in school or are not able to handle it, therefore, parents need to stop making excuses for adults and let them decide their paths in life. If parents stop excusing their kids, then teachers can continue the challenging work for student resilience to increase. College is a privilege, not every child in the world can experience and no one said it would be easy, but no one said it was acceptable to hold each student’s hand for the ride

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