Robert D. Friedberg, PhD, ABPP, Beck Institute Faculty
Coddling represents extreme overprotection where adults perceive children as easily broken and insulate them from disappointment, failure, and emotional distress (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2017). Lukianoff and Haidt in their excellent CBT-informed book, The Coddling of the American Mind, noted that this overprotectiveness creates a culture of “safetyism” and catalyzes fragility in young people. To illustrate this phenomenon, let me share a personal anecdote. When my daughter was playing T-Ball, the league rules dictated that no child should strike out, no one could be ruled out on base, and at the end of each half-inning, the players must be allowed to run around all the bases as if they hit a home run. As anyone with a minimal knowledge of baseball recognizes, these practices do nothing to prepare the kids for the real game. Baseball is a game about coping with failure. The best hitters succeed about 30% of the time and the best teams win only about 60% of their games. The key thing for caregivers is to prepare young people for real life, not insulate them from inevitable hardships.
Tennis legend Roger Federer recently gave a commencement address at Dartmouth College that went viral (2024 Commencement Address by Roger Federer | Dartmouth). In this funny and inspiring speech, he pointed out that effortlessness is a myth and success involves multiple failures. More specifically, he noted that he won 80% of his matches and in those winning sets, he won a surprising mere 54% percent of the points. Accordingly, achievement involves tolerating struggle, accepting imperfections, and learning from them. Indeed, this is what psychologists call grit.
Coddling youth makes it harder for them to develop grit, mastery orientation, and resilience. Grit is defined as persistence in the face of adversity, failure, frustration, and disappointment (Duckworth et al., 2007). Most importantly, this personality characteristic is linked to various forms of achievement in multiple domains. A mastery orientation propels engagement in challenging tasks and strengthens coping (Dweck & Leggett, 1988).
Effectively navigating difficulties involves psychological muscle and repeated practice fortifies the tissue. Similarly, resilience or the ability to bounce back after adversity is developed and reinforced by successful coping.
Unfortunately, we ignite fragility in our youth by insulating them from misfortune. Lukianoff and Haidt (2017) eloquently wrote, “Human beings need physical and mental challenges and stressors or we deteriorate (p. 22).” Bjork and Bjork (2020) defined desirable difficulties as realistic challenges that enhance retrieval, memory, comprehension, and learning. Pursuing desirable difficulties builds an “I can do it” attitude. Decades ago, Albert Bandura (1977) built the concept of self-efficacy, which is the perception that individuals can achieve their goals. Direct experiences coping with hardships create genuine and sturdy self-efficacy. Simply, doing tough things is personally meaningful and ultimately transformative.
Optimistic and mastery-oriented children explain failure with external (about the task or situation), unstable (changeable), and specific (limited to a specific circumstance) causes (Dweck, 1981; Seligman et al., 1995). Likewise, they attribute success to internal (something about oneself), stable (enduring), and global (cross-situational) reasons. In fact, this explanatory style is as early as preschool years (Friedberg & Dalenberg, 1990). Moreover, the emergence of this mental packaging may inoculate youth against depression (Harter, 1985; Weisz, 1984).
CBT is fundamentally helpful in building self-efficacy. Mastery orientations are mediated by attributional processes or the ways events are explained. Guiding children to craft productive interpretations of unwanted, undesirable, and unfavorable outcomes is far more important than helping children and adolescents avoid them. Traditional CBT procedures such as tests of evidence, reattribution, problem-solving, and decatastrophizing spur young people to view themselves and the world through fresh eyes.
A comment from one of my favorite clinical cases underscores this point. I was working with a very perfectionistic 11-year old boy who was highly intolerant of difficulties, discomfort, and change. After successfully applying some of the cognitive behavioral skills mentioned above, he concluded, “I have to remember to think in 3-D… Difficulty Does not equal Disaster!”
In one of my favorite movies, Batman Begins, Alfred, Bruce Wayne’s butler says, “Why do we fall sir? To learn to pick ourselves up.” This is such an important credo to teach to youth. Falling is part of walking, and picking oneself is a central component of children’s journeys. Additionally, Athol Fugard, in this poignant play, A Lesson from Aloes, uses the plant as an apt metaphor for strength, grit, and resilience. Aloes live in an arid, unwelcoming environment yet they bloom. Teaching children and adolescents to flower rather than wilt amid inevitable hardships is a challenge caregivers are well-advised to meet.
References:
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215.
Bjork, R. A., & Bjork, E. L. (2020). Desirable difficulties in theory and practice. Journal of Applied research in Memory and Cognition, 9, 475-479.
Duckworth, A. L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M. D., & Kelly, D. R. (2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1087–1101
Dweck, C. (1981). Social cognitive processes in children’s friendships. In S. Asher & J. Gotttman (Eds.), The development of children’s friendships in children’s friendships (pp. 322-333). Cambridge University Press.
Dweck, C. S., & Leggett, E. L. (1988). A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review, 95(2), 256–273
Friedberg, R.D., & Dalenberg, C.J. (1990). Causal attributions in young children. Child Study Journal, 20, 139-151 Fugard, A. (1993). A lesson from aloes. Theatre Communications Group.
Harter, S. (1985). Competence as a dimension of self-evaluation: Toward a comprehensive model of self-worth. In R.L. Leahy (Ed.), The development of the self (pp. 55-121). Academic Press.
Luckianoff, G. & Haidt, J. (2018). The coddling of the American mind: How good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure. Penguin Press.
Seligman, M. E. P., Reivich, K., Jaycox, L., & Gillham, J. (1995). The optimistic child. Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
Weisz, J.R. (1984). Contingency judgments and achievement behavior: Deciding what is controllable and when to try. In J.G. Nicholls (Ed.), The development of achievement motivation (pp. 107-136). JAI Press.