Children identifying to feel special

I'm also pretty sure that Everybody Gets a Trophy really emphasizes just how not special you are.

Yes, it's weird though, that sort of affirmation model of childhood has some seemingly opposite effects. It totally creates a sense of lack of being special, but also that being special and unique and creative is important. It makes kids dependent on outside affirmation. It tends to make them risk adverse and there are many consequences from that like lacking experiences of getting through bad consequences.

It's interesting that while research has tended to debunk a lot of the ideas around it in education, the schools themselves have tended to carry on with it, it's gained a lot of moral power somehow.

But these kids wouldn't be struggling with their "gender identity" if it hadn't been force fed to them for the last few years because most wouldn't even be aware what that even means. That's why we know it is social contagion, and an adult agenda being pushed onto children.

How on earth have we all managed to grow up without ever having to choose an "gender" before now? This is not about transsexuals who a tiny number of mostly males with severe dysphoria.

As the parent of a trans identified kid, that article just pissed me off. The author has a very shallow understanding of the trans phenomenon.

...there’s a generation of confused kids calling themselves trans and non-binary and it’s not because they’re struggling with their gender identity, it’s because they’re struggling with their social identity and are desperate for attention.

Gender to these kids is a big part of their social identity. These kids probably are struggling with their gender identity and probably do feel dysphoric about it. Gender dysphoria is contagious. To believe it occurs naturally in some people but not this group is to believe that some people truly are born in the wrong body.

I'm also pretty sure that Everybody Gets a Trophy really emphasizes just how not special you are.

And if it comes to that, we all know the teaching workforce is a majority female group, especially at classroom level.

Ppl shouldn't be calling themselves feminist and blaming - however obliquely and this isn't - women for a problem that stems elsewhere, and they shouldn't be calling themselves compassionate towards ROGD youth and in the same breath, invoking the trope used to dismiss anorexia, 'attention seeking'.

Jeez, know your feminist psychiatric history, people.

Yeah, so Mum's fault. Tedious to see feminists embracing the trope.

That poster, and the article , said 'parents' not 'mums'. It also seemed to implicate teachers, social media.... there are obviously many factors. And I'm sure that there are kids to whom none of those seem to apply.

Sadly I know a child who I believe this is true for. Born male and low in confidence, bullied at school, always seeking attention and telling rediculous lies to get the attention. One example he told his Mum he had witnessed an armed robbery in shop on way home from school. Mum fussed over him and then checked his story but a pack of lies to gain attention. Once the story telling stopped getting him attention he said he wanted to be famale,. More attention from Mum, school and CAMHS. Then went through adolescence and fancied girls. Then claimed to be lesbian too. The more labels child got the happier became. Now so many children in his school claim to have gender identity issues he got angry as no longer feels special. Now claiming wants to be male again. Can't help thinking he probably thinks he will get more attention and girlfriend too.

[quote Z0rr0]@BlackWaveComing I don't think the article is saying kids are spoiled, just that parents have over protected them and over praised them, taught them that they need to feel special or they don't count.[/quote]
Yeah, so Mum's fault. Tedious to see feminists embracing the trope.

Fwiw, the above doesn't describe me. My kid is not some special, cossetted m/c child never allowed to fail. And yet he's classic ROGD.

Not as simple as spoiled children wanting to be special.

I talked to a friend of my ROGD son recently - she has lost most of her friends for standing outside the zeitgeist - she helped me understand the extreme social pressure operating on kids atm via social media.

It's nothing like we (born in the 20th C) experienced as teens. It's relentless and extreme.

Some kids are more vulnerable to it than others. Bad parenting? Maybe. I don't know why my son is susceptible. It's not because he's a spoiled shit looking to feel special though.

It's very clear to me that many people feel safer when they can apply clear labels (so-called "identities") to others and to themselves. Belonging to a specific group is very important to them: it feels like their essence (and they would feel lost without it).
Most people would rather belong to a mainstream group (safety in numbers...), but some have to come terms with the fact that they belong to a minority group, because their inner characteristics just don't fit. It can be both a source of grief, and a source of pride (about being gay, or black, etc.)

It's also very clear to me that some (rarer) truly free-thinking individuals see labels as prisons, and avoid them like the plague (... seriously, what could be worse than living your life following a ready made template?).
These free-thinkers are aware of people's different characteristics, but don't believe these characteristics define who you are (they shape your lived experienced, for sure, but they are not you: "you" is the choices you make, not the cards that you were dealt by fate)

Then there's fake rebels, who feel too "special" (narcissistic...?) to be part of a mainstream group, but are really too conformist to be true free-thinkers, so end up zealously embracing the orthodoxy of a minority group instead.
They are big on pride, and loud about grief... even when they don't actually possess any of the characteristics usually associated with membership to this particular minority group.
A classic example would be people who invent themselves black ancestors.
But I'm sure we can think of other examples...

Matt Lucas's " But, but I'm the only gay in the village!" was well observed it seems.

Having an identity and more crucially having it 'validated' by society seems to be so important to young people.

I wonder if it stems from the 'everyones a winner' ideology that was prevalent in the late nineties early 2000's where children were made to feel super special all of the time and this has spilt over into young adulthood, the need to special and unique?

I recently heard a deaf teenager giving a talk about their experience of disability. The number of times they said "my deaf identity".... I was baffled as to when this became a thing, never mind such a major preoccupation. As above: huge pressure to find a label.

And the utter numpty I saw happily tweet back to someone distressed about possibly losing any sexual feeling due to medication they were considering, "so you'll be asexual - it's just another identity!!!!!!" (Happy face happy face happy face)

What the hell have we let happen to this generation?

...there’s a generation of confused kids calling themselves trans and non-binary and it’s not because they’re struggling with their gender identity, it’s because they’re struggling with their social identity and are desperate for attention.

This is so patently obvious that I am dumbfounded that secondary schools, who should be the world experts in recognising teenage pattern behaviours, have allowed themselves to be led down the gender affirmation path.

DS (Y8) rolls his eyes at the the gender identify bullshit which had already started at the beginning of Y7. In his own words, he sees it as being "attention seeking". Of course, that need for affirmation may be driven by very real and sometimes distressing challenges (GNC, autism, bullying, abuse), but it doesn't change the reality that these are NOT children who are suffering with "being trapped in the wrong body".

Z0rr0

Some of them might end up being gay, but it's much more about their tribe at school than anything else I think.

this

This is what I have been saying too. My daughter’s group of 7, all are lesbian or bi, quite young teens, 1 is a transboy and 2 declared themselves NB this year.

There conversations revolve around being ‘the gays’ (their label, definitely not mine!!) and very little else. It seems they feel so much pressure to fit into a ‘label’. We have tried so hard to help our daughter to understand that labels can be limiting, but as she gets older the pull of the label is so strong.

What you say here definitely resonnates with me.

And I saw a thread from a young woman yesterday who admitted that fitting into a label was so important to her. I don’t think she put together how much her professed beliefs were quite different to her actual beliefs once you scratched the surface. But she had to ‘fit’ the labels she wanted to aspire to attribute to herself.

We used to just be emo.

I think a lot of kids and adults are under social pressure to adopt a #label for themselves. Identity politics really makes people feel they have to pick a team and then social media really takes what could be important political thinking and turns it into crap shorthand, effectively just personal branding