The Dark Side: Inflated Self-Esteem Is the Culprit of Negative Results

Times are changing is an evident statement. Our young Americans are also changing. They seem to be more confident, tolerant, and more open-minded than ever before, but they also seem to feel very entitled. Our youth are both demanding and self-centered for the most part, expecting things to just happen because they want them to, and feel they are entitled to such. We have been told that high self-esteem is the key to children’s happiness and success, and we’ve been praising and protecting them ever since. We have been teaching our children to feel good about themselves even when they have done nothing special to feel good about. The overall belief that if we increase self-esteem among society it will increase the goodness in society is a nice thought but it lacks the evidence proving so. Low self-esteem has been the blame for many issues of today’s times. However, others believe that low self-esteem carries little or no factor in negative outcomes, but that inflated self-esteem is the actual culprit of such negative results. It is likely that this debate will continue for quite some time. The self-esteem movement has gone too far; it is crippling our children.

The self-esteem movement came about in the 1970’s. Psychologist Nathaniel Branden published a highly acclaimed paper called “The Psychology of Self-Esteem.” He argued that self-esteem was a “profound and powerful human need essential to healthy adaptiveness, that is, to optimal functioning and self-fulfillment. To the extent that the need is frustrated, we suffer and are thwarted in our development.” (Branden XV). Branden claims that all psychological problems are somehow connected to the lack of self-esteem. He claims that people can only be happy and successful if th...

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...with our children effectively. We need to listen, learn, and influence our children to accept themselves for who they are. We must teach our children how to learn from their mistakes, to be empathetic to others, we need to teach our children how to be responsible, compassionate, how to make decisions and solve problems. Children have a better chance of being successful, contributing members of society if we help them to develop realistic goals and expectations. We cannot continue to make our children believe that they are something that they are not. We cannot continue to falsely inflate our children’s beliefs and expectations. When we hand our children everything they want on a platter, we are setting them up for failure and disappointment, at the very least. Society has inadvertently created self-absorbed, self-centered children with a great sense of entitlement.