Kizzy and Trophies

Interesting title?  I'd like to think so.  Kizzy, my friends, is my new-found heroine.  This is a Milwaukee mother - a black lady with a 13-year old daughter and 15-year old son.  It seems that after Summerfest, which I believe to be a 4th of July festival held along the lake, there was looting and a few robberies in the Riverwest neighborhood in Milwaukee on Sunday evening.  As Kizzy sat watching the news, the surveillance video played and, lo and behold, who should she see but her lovely children taking part in the looting.  Upon arriving home, mom decided to have a little chat with them and told them what she had seen.  She decided to sleep on it that evening and the next day - BAM!  Yes, she placed her kids in the car and took them to the police station.  Mom ratted out the kids.  For that, I say mom gets recognized.  She told the local news that she provides a stable loving environment and how sorely disappointed she was when she saw how her kids acted when she was not around.  Kizzy acknowledges that this is wrong and is telling other parents to do the same.  Is she doing anything out of the ordinary?  Well, not if this was 1975, but this is 2011!  How many times do kids get to publicly show their sense of entitlement until we say, "Enough!"?  This is one parent taking a stand and I, for one, think she deserves a lot of credit.  Way to go, Kizzy - You, my dear, are a rock star!

How did Kizzy go so wrong?  She didn't...and that'why I put 'trophies' in here, too.  Once again, one of my pet peeves made the Today Show.  Glaring and bold, they asked if giving trophies to every kid, merely for participating, is the wrong thing to do.  The question posed to a psychologist this morning was, "Are we helping or hurting our kids by doing this?"  I think the example above is a fine one that points, as they mentioned, to the sense of entitlement kids have nowadays.  Giving kids a trophy, as I have said (loudly) in the past, sends the wrong message.  We are telling our kids if they show up they get rewarded.  It isn't that way in sports, nor in life.  Life is not fair, though many of today's youth seem to think it should be.  Again, I'm really, really sorry that Timmy came home crying because he didn't get a trophy.  Tell Timmy to work harder.  Hey, Dad - go throw the ball with Timmy so he doesn't get smacked in the face with it and expect a trophy.  For what?  "Kid whose face stopped the ball fastest"?  We are hurting our children when we do not discipline or let them get hurt, either emotionally or physically.  Hate to break it to you, Mom and Dad, but you will not be there when your kid experiences some of life's most bitter disappointments.  Stop trying to shield them and stop thinking that they are all going to excel at everything.  Maybe Timmy can save his face if you take him to piano lessons rather than baseball.  Maybe, too, Jack, the ballet dancer, ought to be fielding punts instead of doing a pirouette.  Think about it.  Let's do right by our children and find what they do best...instead of what we WANT them to do best.

Until next time..........