Rules That Kids Won't Learn in Schools

Beldar · March 18, 2010, 9:38am

From the Neal Boortz website:

From Charles J. Sykes, author of the book Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can’t Read, Write, Or Add:

Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase “It’s not fair” 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.

Rule No. 2: The real world won’t care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It’ll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain that it’s not fair. (See Rule No. 1)

Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won’t make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won’t be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn’t have a Gap label.

Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he’s not going to ask you how you feel about it.

Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren’t embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

Rule No. 6: It’s not your parents’ fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of “It’s my life,” and “You’re not the boss of me,” and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it’s on your dime. Don’t whine about it, or you’ll sound like a baby boomer.

Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents’ generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.

Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn’t. In some schools, they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone’s feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2 and Rule No. 4.)

Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don’t get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don’t get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we’re at it, very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)

Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.

Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.

Rule No. 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you’re out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That’s what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for “expressing yourself” with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.

Rule No. 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven’t seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.

Rule No. 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school’s a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you’ll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now. You’re welcome.

bogibogi · March 18, 2010, 10:34am

Thank you for sharing. I’ll be sure to pass this along to my kids…maybe they’ll heed these rules if it’s not coming from me.

jessiehl · March 18, 2010, 10:37am

Woo, condescending, obnoxious advice lists! This guy appears to be talking to some image of a terrible teenager that he has in his head, as opposed to any actual teenager that I’ve known.

In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard any teenager say “It’s not fair!”

Some of the advice is also not universally applicable. I have friends (over 20) who have purple hair or pierced body parts and have successful professional lives (e.g. as engineers). And several of these pieces of advice seem to amount to “work is harder than school” which has not been true for me (maybe if we’re talking about high school, but certainly not if we’re talking about college).

Also, oh no, teenagers want to make a difference in the world for the better (saving the rainforests), and like to spend some of their time being unproductive (“talking about Kurt Cobain”)! Teenagers never ever spent time being unproductive before 1950! What ever will we do? The former seems to me like a feature, not a bug, and who cares about the latter as long as they are leading generally productive lives?

mom2collegekids · March 18, 2010, 10:43am

^^^^

If you’re a teen, then it’s not surprising that you haven’t heard that. Teens tend to say that to parents more than their peers.

The “it’s not fair” tends to get said when…a friend has more toys or a nicer car, one sibling has an opportunity that another one doesn’t get, one sibling believes that his chores are worse than this sibling’s chores, etc…

Schmaltz · March 18, 2010, 10:45am

“Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase “It’s not fair” 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.”

My father was born in Johnstown, PA (a city wiped out 3 times by major floods) during World War I. His father was an immigrant who somehow avoided the coal mines and steel mills and became a bar owner. Buth then came Prohibition, so… Then the Great Depression. Then my father was drafted into the Army for WWII, and ended up as an infantry officer in Europe. He insisted that my brother and I banish the word “fair” from our vocabularies. It was “the F word” in our house. My 2 adolescent daughters attempt to use that F word all the time, and I ALWAYS remind them of my father’s rule.

Brooklynborndad · March 18, 2010, 10:53am

Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase “It’s not fair” 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.

Life is not completely fair. It is not completely unfair. Thinking in extremes is a the main problem. Its a mistake to expect complete fairness. But its also a mistake to accept all unfairness.

Rule No. 2: The real world won’t care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It’ll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain that it’s not fair. (See Rule No. 1)

Our kids school, a selective elite school is a self esteem killer. My NMF D called herself ‘dumb’ cause she couldn’t keep up with all the kids headed to MIT. The RW, btw, is very concerned about self esteem, when low self esteem has negative real world consequences.

Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won’t make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won’t be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn’t have a Gap label.

Is this at all relevant at this forum?

Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he’s not going to ask you how you feel about it.

Some bosses act one way, some another. I once had a boss who loved to cuss and denigrate his employees. he had massive turnover, till he went bankrupt.

Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren’t embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

Talk about being dated (I mean the Cobain reference). Of course my grandparents worked menial jobs so that THEIR kids wouldn’t have to. Its called the American Dream.

Rule No. 6: It’s not your parents’ fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of “It’s my life,” and “You’re not the boss of me,” and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it’s on your dime. Don’t whine about it, or you’ll sound like a baby boomer.

If I hadn’t met parents of my generation who screwed their kids up, I might be able to take this seriously. BTW dude, generalizing about a generation is stupid. We boomers finally learned that, most of us.

Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents’ generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.

Some of my fellow parents have been boring long before they became parents, and thats a fact. And cleaning the bedroom closet won’t actually stop global warming.

Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn’t. In some schools, they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone’s feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2 and Rule No. 4.)

What schools is he talking about? If anything, schools seem more focused on competition than the rest of the world. Results are most important, but tend to come from teamwork, not oneupmanship.

Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don’t get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don’t get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we’re at it, very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)

Life is divided into Fiscal years, seasons, marketing initiatives, and even different jobs. Any decent job offers vacations and holidays. They do expect you to show up every day, but most don’t give long homework assignments. And if you work at it, you can find a job that offers self realization. Maybe the author doesn’t realize what that means.

Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.

Kids have time for TV?

Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.

My kid is a nerd. I doubt the author is.

Rule No. 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you’re out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That’s what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for “expressing yourself” with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.

The generation that turned against smoking was the baby boomers.

Rule No. 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school’s a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you’ll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now. You’re welcome.

Most kids I know do that. This author seems intent on throwing a damper over it.

garland · March 18, 2010, 11:01am

Well done, Brooklyn-borndad.

And Momof2, Jessiehl is not a teen; she’s a graduate of MIT. I think she knows a bit about hard work.

mom2collegekids · March 18, 2010, 11:27am

^^^

I never suggested that she didn’t know anything about hard work. She said that she’s never heard kids say that “life isn’t fair.” That made me think that she’s not a parent of teens. I shouldn’t have asked if she was teen, because that isn’t relevant. I should have said, “if you’re not a parent of a teen…” which it sounds like she’s not.

bulletandpima · March 18, 2010, 11:29am

Notice you said selective elite for your child, not every kid goes to selective elite K-12 schools. I am assuming selective elite means Public MAGNET, where you fight for a spot or PRIVATE. They are not the norm for Public education.

I also disagree, the RW could not give a rats arse about your self esteem issues, they care about you getting the job done and carrying your weight, they don’t want to hear excuses.

Of course it is…it is telling kids, that they have to work up the ladder, and may have to dress appropriately…i.e. a SUIT AND TIE! :eek:

I take it that company was not a Fortune 500 or the military? Heck even as a Realtor, I got my butt chewed out and I love my broker like a father. He is a great man, but I made the error and business is business, it is not personal.

Check out any public K-8, they hand awards for 100% attendance, citizen of the month, most musical, (even to those who are not in band or chorus). Parents like me hate going to awards ceremonies, they last forever because every single child will win an award.

FWIW, this has occurred in NJ, AK, KS, VA and NC. VA (NO VA) school board even tried to go so far as to require teachers to grade in PURPLE because RED had a bad connotation associated with it.

You are right they do offer vacations and holidays, but 2 weeks, is a lot less than 10+. How many times have you heard a newly minted college grad say " I am going to take the summer off before I start looking for a job, because it is the last time I will ever be able to do it"? A lot of kids say that or at least want to say it.

Have you seen the stats of how many hours the avg kid sits in front of a TV or a computer screen? Not every parent in the world is running their child around to every EC possible to get their kid into college starting at age 8.

Did your child go to traditional public school, because if he did and he is truly a NERD you would never say that. Our DS was in Gifted classes starting in 3rd grade. He was teased and taunted with comments like “just ask so and so, he knows everything”. He never raised his hand to answer questions because of comments like that, he wanted to be just like everyone else, hard to do when they pull you out of the class to go to your gifted class. I am thinking the author was a NERD and got sweet revenge later on.
About a yr ago I read an article, can’t remember if it was in Time, Newsweek, or USNWR, but it stated a problem occurring in the corporate world now is that parents are still involved and have bought off on the idea that they still need to protect their children in the real world. Maybe they should have read these rules to their children.

bulletandpima · March 18, 2010, 11:34am

BTW, I am sorry, but find me a parent, any parent who has NEVER heard their child utter the words “That’s not FAIR”. Be real, I said it to my Mother and my children have said it to me, along with the reply “Why? Because I said so, and when you are the parent than you can make the decision!”

To say your friends never said it either is also a BS flag raiser…did you live with them 24/7 when they were fighting with the folks?

Do you believe in 15 yrs from now that your friends who are engineers, will be eligible to be the CEO of Lockheed Martin or Pratt & Whitney with purple hair and body piercings (let’s say tongue, nose or brow)? Of course not because the board does not want that as their image. Entry level, sure, they will look the other way, but not when it comes to a promotion, because image does play a factor. Granted, maybe in a more liberal field where it is acceptable, but I don’t think Bill Gates wants a CEO with a nose ring or purple hair. Facebook, Google, maybe.

I am not saying that they are any less intelligent, just saying corporate world runs an age generation of 40 yrs plus, unlike college of 4. College and hs is the time to have fun and still be a kid, corporate is when you realize it is not about you anymore, it is about the almighty dollar. Sorry that’s life.

Grcxx3 · March 18, 2010, 11:42am

^^^
I agree. I thought “That’s not fair” was just part of regular teen/kid vocabulary!!! My kids have said, it, I said it to my mother - and I KNOW my mother said it to her father (there’s a long family story about it). :)

Hunt · March 18, 2010, 11:43am

I would like to quibble a bit with the “it’s not fair” part of this. I certainly agree that life isn’t fair; that bad things happen to good people, etc.

However, that sad fact doesn’t justify the actions of people who choose to treat others unfairly. I think teenagers can be idealistic, and they think a lot of things *should *be fair. Well, they’ right–they should be. I don’t want to be too hasty in telling teens that there’s nothing they can do about it.

By the way, the earliest version of this list probably said “rolling papyrus” or “tanning mammoth hides” instead of “flipping burgers.”

poetgrl · March 18, 2010, 11:46am

“Don’t whine or you’ll sound like a baby boomer,” roared with laughter. So true.

Brooklynborndad · March 18, 2010, 11:49am

"Rule No. 2: The real world won’t care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It’ll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain that it’s not fair. (See Rule No. 1)

Our kids school, a selective elite school is a self esteem killer. My NMF D called herself ‘dumb’ cause she couldn’t keep up with all the kids headed to MIT. The RW, btw, is very concerned about self esteem, when low self esteem has negative real world consequences.

Notice you said selective elite for your child, not every kid goes to selective elite K-12 schools. I am assuming selective elite means Public MAGNET, where you fight for a spot or PRIVATE. They are not the norm for Public education."

Top Public Magnet. But she was in regular GT centers, it wasnt that much different.

“I also disagree, the RW could not give a rats arse about your self esteem issues, they care about you getting the job done and carrying your weight, they don’t want to hear excuses.”

RW as in citizens and policy makers concerned about drug use, drop outs, suicide rates, etc. RW does not only mean your employer, in his role as an employer.

garland · March 18, 2010, 11:52am

Hunt–much agreed. “Life’s not fair” is so often used to justify deliberate unfairness. I think we are obligated to treat each other as fairly as possible (civilly, kindly, respectfully) no matter what “life” ditches out.

Brooklynborndad · March 18, 2010, 11:54am

"Quote:
Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won’t make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won’t be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn’t have a Gap label.

Is this at all relevant at this forum?

Of course it is…it is telling kids, that they have to work up the ladder, and may have to dress appropriately…i.e. a SUIT AND TIE! "

I read that rule as being about uniforms at retailers and restaurants, not about office attire. Which, BTW, is far more flexible than it was when I entered the work place, and varies by industry. Differs at Google say, from at Goldman Sachs. Of those two, I know where I would rather my DD go to work :)

"Quote:
Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he’s not going to ask you how you feel about it.

Some bosses act one way, some another. I once had a boss who loved to cuss and denigrate his employees. he had massive turnover, till he went bankrupt.

I take it that company was not a Fortune 500 or the military? Heck even as a Realtor, I got my butt chewed out and I love my broker like a father. He is a great man, but I made the error and business is business, it is not personal."

Boutique consulting firm. The boss was a brilliant academic, but no people skills, and he ran the place into the ground. I have worked at Fortune 500 equivalent (service 200 actually) and while most managers weren’t like psychotherapists, they were generally rational and tried to be long term focused. My kid has certainly had teachers who were far harsher on self esteem than the average manager.

applicannot · March 18, 2010, 11:55am

Believe it or not, some of us had parents who came up with real reasons. That may be a factor here.

bigtrees · March 18, 2010, 11:58am

Boy, I wear jeans and a t-shirt to work. On Fridays I wear a collegiate sweatshirt…is that bad?

rocket6louise · March 18, 2010, 11:59am

Wow…how condescending. I’m a teen and I work my butt off. I don’t feel entitled to anything and work hard for everything. Maybe some kids are like this, but sweeping generalizations rarely fly

poetgrl · March 18, 2010, 12:00pm

I always had/have reasons. I’ll say them a few times. I’m even negotiable on certain things if the kids can give me a good argument and prove it’s actually safe.

However, there are times, at the end of the argument when I just say, “Nope, this is just going to have to be one of those because I said so moments. Sorry.”

I only did it rarely, but it usually just made them laugh. For some reasons the kids think that one is really funny coming from me. Of course, I also have kids who say things like, “It’s probably easier to be beaten than explained at all the time.” Spoken like children who have never been beaten, of course.

Rules That Kids Won't Learn in Schools

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