Don't Teach Your Kids to Brag

Don't teach your kids to brag. This advice seems to fly in the face of our current, sorry culture, in which bragging is a staple of the characters in television commercials. We are meant to laugh when a character refuses to share; we are supposed to enjoy a character’s narcissistic assumption of superiority, and of course we are intended to accept that we, ourselves, are losers if we don’t by the product.

We can find examples of bragging without resorting to watching commercials. Singers, dancers and cooks auditioning for reality show competitions frequently declare themselves the next “idol” of their chosen field. Rarely do they pass the audition, never mind survive the competition. Bragging doesn’t make it so.

What creates success is work. If you want your child to feel special, let that child accomplish something instead of sporting those obnoxious "student of the month' bumper stickers on your car after you've completed your child's science project. Every time you take over a child's homework, every time you make excuses for your child's bad behavior and, yes, every time you badmouth a child on the opposing soccer, football, baseball or softball team, you are disabling your child.

What does that have to do with bragging? It has to do with character. It has to do with teaching your child to take pride in his work (yes, I said "work"), and at the same time to respect others. It has to do with the simple fact that not one of us belongs at the center of the universe, and when we put ourselves there, we look and sound foolish, like the grown man jogging in the street next to a perfectly good sidewalk, wearing headphones, who was causing traffic to swerve around him. His response when a driver waived at him to get on the sidewalk was to throw his arms out and his head back like the winner of a race and to shout "F... you!" with a triumphant smile. I wonder if he thought he'd conquered all those poor, hapless drivers swerving around him? What about the one that finally hits him one day? That person's life will be ruined just as surely as the jogger's. Who wins then?

While the jogger enjoys his delusional moment of glory, others are forced to avoid him. We all want to avoid the person who can't stop talking about his achievements or his possessions or his opinions. Yet we teach our children to brag by example.

Which bumper sticker do you have on your car? "My child is an Honor Student at ...," "My child is Student of the Month at ..." or "My juvenile delinquent kicked your honor student's ass"? If it's the last one, you get an exemption from the anti-bragging rule, partly because I hope you're kidding and partly because you might be the one who made me laugh. I beg your pardon, but who cares if your kid is an honor student? We don't know you or your kid, and there are a lot of other cars with the same silly bumper stickers.

Oh, I've been offered those "Honor Student" bumper stickers myself. My children would bring them home from school, and I would say, 'wow, that's great! You are doing a really good job! And no! That is not going on my car. Bragging is rude; I'm surprised your teacher didn't tell you."

Of course the schools use these bumper stickers as their own form of boasting... oops, I mean advertising. "See? We can produce honor students and students of the month!" Well, it would be a pretty poor school that couldn't, and a lot of the schools that come up with these things are ordinary public schools attended by children whose families have no choice. It makes about as much sense for a school to take to the streets with these bumper stickers as it does to eschew a straight wide sidewalk and jog in the street. While the immediate results might not be as catastrophic, the long-term outlook isn't promising.

Real achievers don't need to brag. If a school is good, plenty of people will talk about it; the school doesn't need to send bumper stickers home with the children. If a student is good, his or her efforts should be recognized on a personal, immediate level in whatever way the school and the student's family consider appropriate, not by slapping a mindless bumper sticker on the backside of a car.

Are you proud of your child? Say so -- to your child. And if you're not, have you given your child a chance to shine? There are plenty of ways to blind ourselves to the genius in our own children. Are you "helping" so much with school or club projects that the end product is more your work than his or hers? Are you so afraid that your child's efforts won't look good that you quickly take over, or is your child so overscheduled that he or she couldn't possibly finish a project without your taking charge?

Or is the problem that you simply don't recognize some bright spark in your own child because you are so caught up in imagining the talents you wish your child had? Perhaps you don't have an academic or sports star on your hands, but have you noticed what your child can do? Is he sloppy and creative? If so, how much time do you spend nagging him to tidy up instead of recognizing his blossoming talent? Is she constantly showing up in bizarre outfits that make you cringe, but that just might hint at a gift for -- or at least an interest in -- design? Has your child ever had a chance to cook, to paint, to raise a pet or to tell a story in his own words? Does he or she have the time to dream?

In our desire to produce the best children, we fail to bring out the best in our children. My children's father had to be taught to let the children pour their own drinks. He kept arguing that if we let them do that, they would spill. I'd retort that that is what sponges are for, and how on earth can anyone learn to pour a drink without spilling? What were we to do, keep pouring the milk until the child could buy his own whiskey, and then start pouring that?

Boasting about our children constitutes a subtle insult. We are saying, “Look at the excellent product I produced.” We are taking credit while we pat our child on the head and give him or her a cookie for a trick well done. We are rewarding them for doing clever tricks and pleasing their teachers instead of respecting them enough to say, “That’s great that you’re doing so well, but of course you wouldn’t want me to brag about you.”

Of course your child does want you to brag about him, because he is a child and doesn't yet know better. But if you respect him, you’ll realize that he will survive without thatbumper sticker. And you will naturally be telling your parents and best friends how sorry you were to have to throw that nice bumper sticker away. When they ask, “what bumpersticker?” you, modestly flustered, will murmur something about how Junior is apparently an honor student. See? You do get to brag, if you go about it correctly.

Our children might be straight-A students or they might be juvenile delinquents. They might even manage to be both if they are truly exceptional. Most of our children, however, are going to fall somewhere in the middle. They will seem ordinary. They will only get awards at school assemblies in those schools (and I'm afraid these are in the majority) that give awards for nearly everything, down to breathing, lest they hurt some child's feelings.

What is there to aspire to if you get an award merely for showing up at school every day (and sharing your flu with the rest of the class)? What is there to achieve if by second grade your parents are already tooting your horn, so to speak, on the street? Will your kid surrender to his own charm to the point that he believes he can dominate traffic in his jogging shorts? Will he start shouting "F-- you!" at a world that somehow doesn't seem to grasp his importance?

Instead of bragging about our children, let's respect them enough to let them spill the milk, color outside the lines and forgo those silly bumper stickers. Let's teach them responsibility and courtesy. Let's teach them to shine with their own unique light, and they will not need us to brag about them, only to love and respect them, which is all they ever needed anyway.

Don't teach your kids to brag. Narcissism now permeates our culture. It is difficult to get through a day without being cursed at, cut off in traffic or otherwise disrespected and possibly endangered by someone who can't be bothered to climb down from his -- or her -- own self-wrought pedestal. If our children become gods in their own minds, who will be left to serve? Who will keep society running while our children preen? If you are not concerned, let me ask you this: what kind of life can anyone have if, at the end of the day, he or she must be driven by applause?