027: Helping Your Child Avoid "American Idol" Syndrome

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American Idol is a show featuring vocalists who audition and compete for a chance to share their gift with the world. One of the big draws of the show is the audition process, where hopefuls from all over the country sing in front of the judges in hopes of advancing to the next level. The talent ranges from really good to “I can’t believe they let that person get this far,” which is part of the schtick. It’s mildly entertaining to watch someone butcher a song, especially if they seem to have no clue as to how bad their singing is.

We obviously don’t want that kind of obliviousness for our kids, but sometimes we find it difficult to be direct with them about the things they need to improve on, especially if they seem to think highly of their talent.

In this episode, Ben and Rachel get into this and other manifestations of “American Idol” syndrome, the root cause, and things we can do as parents to not only help our children to have a more secure sense of self worth, but have the freedom to hear constructive critique and grow in their talents.

Highlights, Takeaways, & Quick Wins

• Obliviousness to one’s skill level can be harmful.
• The more secure our children are in their identity, the more they believe in their inherent self worth, and the more receptive they’ll be to criticism.
• There are tremendous benefits when you make qualities like hard work and growth the focus of your praise.
• If you’re going to offer any kind of critique, only do so where you can be objective.
• We can show our children that what they’re born with is not what they’re fixed with, because there is always an opportunity to grow.
• One of the most important things we can do to avoid idealism is to foster a sense of community for our children.
• Children can have their own opinions about the things they accomplish, outside of your opinions.
• Our kids become blind to evaluation when they’re dependent on our thoughts on what they do.
• Don’t be afraid that you’re going to hurt your child’s feelings or sense of self worth if you give them critique.
• If we can help our kids find their own form of art and not try to be someone else, we’re setting them on their own journey.
• We can fight entitlement in our kids by teaching them that a lot of work goes into being successful at anything.

Show Notes

• 07:11 Ben: If you watch American Idol or those kinds of shows, many adults still struggle with what I’m calling American Idol Syndrome. I didn’t come up with that—I think I heard it somewhere. Before I get into my own definition, what do you think American Idol Syndrome is, Rachel?
• 07:33 Rachel: I think of the American Idol tryouts, and how some people would go try out and not even realize that they didn’t necessarily have the talent of singing, but they were so confident in themselves that they were able to bust out this ear-hurting “melody.” To me, American Idol Syndrome is thinking, “I’m just the best at everything. I can do whatever I want.” We were told as kids, “You can achieve any dream you have and do anything you want to do with your life,” but I think that needs to be filtered through things like talent and what we’re willing to put in the work for.

What is American Idol Syndrome?

• 08:26 Ben: We have an international audience, so I want to explain that American Idol is a show, and there are similar talent shows that have been a fad lately. American Idol was a singing contest where people would come on, stand before the judges, and try out. Part of what made the show fun, interesting, and funny was that the preliminary judges weren’t the celebrity judges. They were just people who went to convention centers and lined up. Thousands of people went through this process. The preliminary judges would look for people who were humorously bad and would send them through just so that they would have the experience of being ridiculed on national television.
• 09:29 Rachel: That always made me feel really sorry for those people. At the same time, they had no clue. Nobody had ever told them that maybe this was not something they could do.
• 09:42 Ben: I wonder how much of that was staged or how much of that was authentic, but there were people who weren’t very good singers who seemed to genuinely believe that they were amazing. It was almost to the point where when the celebrity judges, some of whom didn’t pull any punches when it came to critique, would say, “You’re actually terrible,” the contestant wouldn’t believe them. They would think, “You guys are obviously on drugs or something, because I’m awesome.”

Although we can see exaggerated forms of American Idol Syndrome, obliviousness to one’s skill level can be harmful.

• 10:35 This is especially true if your child grows up in an environment where they’re never faced with the reality of where they are. When they get out into the real world and they experience somebody who doesn’t pull any punches, who tells them like it is, if your child’s identity is wrapped up in that skill, it can be potentially crushing. That’s one part of my definition for American Idol Syndrome. There are a couple of other aspects, too. One is idealism about success, looking at celebrities, whether they’re in acting, design, painting, or whatever, looking at their industry leaders and thinking, “I’ve got to get to that level.”
• 11:37 This includes not understanding the relationship between the work they have to put in and the journey they have to go through and their success. Some people let that be the pinnacle instead of focusing on the journey there. Another part of this is the opposite of the person who’s oblivious to their lack of talent—somebody who doesn’t believe in their gifts or is too hard on themselves.
• 12:06 Rachel: You call that an American Idol Syndrome, too? Or is that different? I would think that’s different.
• 12:14 Ben: It is different, but it has the same root. It’s all a part of the same ugly problem, and that’s why I wanted to bring it in.

The Source of the Problem

• 12:27 The root of the problem is the person’s identity being wrapped up in their ability, regardless of what their expression of this is. Their self worth is tied to how good they are at a thing. In the person who is oblivious to their lack of talent, they’re either unable or unwilling to face criticism. It’s easier for them to believe that they’re good. Their identity is wrapped up in that. The person who’s idealistic about success is in love with the idea of celebrity. The person who doesn’t believe in themselves or is too hard on themselves is probably dealing with some form of perfectionism. This is all tied to self worth.
• 13:24 For the person who seems oblivious to their lack of talent, it’s easier for them to believe they’re good and not to face criticism. If they trace that back and say, “What if I actually open myself up to criticism and I find out that I’m not good enough? If I find out that I’m not good enough, what if that means that I’m not worth anything? If I’m not worth anything, what if that means that no one will ever love me, and I’m going to be alone? If I’m alone…” This goes back to our need to be in community and have that support system.
• 14:14 There’s a danger, in their mind, because their self worth is tied to their ability. There’s a danger that if they’re faced with reality, all of that is going to go away. They keep perpetuating this lie for themselves. Celebrity is a similar thing. A lot of people love celebrities. You look at them and, if they have a ton of fans or followers, you think, “That person is loved by a lot of people.” That love is a replacement for that need for community. If a lot of people love you or follow you, then you’re more secure, right? That’s the lie that’s going on there. With perfectionism, it’s all about, “I need to be better so that I can be good enough, so that I can be loved and secure in community.” Do you see how it’s all tied to the same thing?

The more secure our children are in their identity, the more they believe in their inherent self worth and the more receptive they’ll be to criticism.

• 15:39 We’re going to talk about how that works practically, how we as parents can foster that sense of self worth, and also guide them in their growth, skills, and self awareness.

Fostering Self Worth & Self Awareness

• 15:54 The most important thing, the cornerstone, is reenforcing your child’s sense of self worth. You do this by the obvious things—spending time with them, doing things they enjoy, and expressing love to them that’s not tied to some condition. When it comes to their skill or whatever they’re doing, avoid language that ties their self worth to their skill. Use language like “proud for” rather than “proud of” (Related: e20 Preserving Your Child’s Sense of Self Worth). Pride is something your child gets from you by virtue of being your child. That’s part of their inherent worth. You’re proud of them, and that’s not tied to what they do.
• 16:53 You can feel pride for their accomplishments, so you’re not saying, “I’m proud of you for doing that,” but you’re saying, “I feel proud for you.” I know that’s a subtle difference, and your child may not recognize the nuance in that, but talking about it in that way helps you as the parent to be intentional about thinking about pride in a different way.
• 17:27 Rachel: We can see this subtle difference more clearly as adults, because if you think about when somebody says, “I feel proud of you,” it’s almost like, when you hear that, you feel like you need to do more of what you just did to get whatever little reward you can get.
• 17:50 Ben: You think, “If I don’t keep performing well, achieving things, and doing well, is this pride going to go away?” You don’t want that to be a question in your child’s mind.

When someone says, “I’m proud for you,” instead of, “I’m proud of you,” it’s like they’re joining in that pride with you.

• 18:17 As a parent, how do you critique? Again, it’s really important that our child has a healthy sense of self worth and their identity is not attached to their skill. Before you can offer critique and help them grow in a specific skill that they’re interested in, you may have to do some work upfront. Offering critique when their identity is still firmly wrapped in their skill can be harmful.
• 18:46 Rachel: Either they’re not going to hear it, or they’re going to take it very personally.
• 18:51 Ben: You may need to do some work upfront reaffirming that sense of self worth. It may even come to having an explicit conversation about what they’re worth to you, and that it doesn’t matter how good they are at this or that, but you’re going to love them the same and you’re always going to support them and be there for them. Sitting down and having that conversation can be really impactful. Make sure that’s in place first. If you’re going to offer any kind of critique, only do so where you can be objective. You can only be objective when you have some level of experience or expertise. This doesn’t mean that you have to be a master, but offering subjective critique is, most often, not helpful, and ends up pointing back to their self worth, because that has more to do with what you think of it.
• 19:59 Rachel: I’m super fascinated with the work of Carol Dweck. She is the pioneer of the growth mindset vs. the fixed mindset. I think that’s helpful in the critiquing part, because as parents, we can help our children learn that just because they don’t have these skills right now doesn’t mean that they won’t ever have them. If they can’t carry a tune right now, there might be things we can do to fix that. They can take voice lessons, learn more about music, or find something else in music to do if they’re not as great at being a singer.

We can show our children that what they’re born with is not what they’re fixed with, because there is always an opportunity to grow.

• 20:52 For me, if one of our children is writing a story and I notice that the character arc is a little bit stale, that doesn’t mean that he’s not meant to be a writer. Most writers, when they start, have really flat characters. My job as a parent is to help teach him how to make characters that are fascinating. Some of those things only come with practice, but I think it’s really important to let them know that this is something they can grow into. It’s not necessarily something that’s fixed and done.
• 21:32 Ben: I really love the example Rachel just gave, because it illustrates the point really well. Because of Rachel’s expertise in writing and the things she understands, she’s able to provide some really valuable critique. As an adult, there were things I had my identity wrapped up in. There were probably many things like that. For those things, I didn’t want to hear critique, because I was afraid of what that meant for me. When those are separate, when I’m secure in my own self worth and my identity is not wrapped up in my skill, I’m able to receive those critiques, and instead of being hurtful or harmful, they become extremely valuable.
• 22:27 It’s a way for me to now grow. As a parent who might want to offer some critique, ask yourself, “Is what I’m going to say a tool my child can use to grow in their ability? Do I have the knowledge and expertise to be able to offer that to them?” For example, if they ask you, “What could I do better? Did I do that right?” It’s okay to say, “I actually don’t know enough about it to offer you good advice.” Focus on the execution of it. You can also seek out people who can offer some critique, who do have more expertise and the ability to provide critique as a tool to help your children grow. There are times when subjectivity can be valuable, but you have to be really careful with it. All of this has to come under your child having a secure sense of self worth.

Encouraging Without Attaching Worth to Skill

• 24:11 Point to things that are peripheral to that skill that are actually a part of your child’s identity, things like, “You can do difficult things.” That is a part of their identity that doesn’t have anything to do with their skill, but it’s something they can call upon to work toward mastery of whatever skill they want to work on.
• 24:44 Rachel: Say your child is trying to draw a house. I think this happened the other day for us, where our five year old said, “I want you to draw a house for me.” I said, “I don’t want to draw a house, because I want to see your house.” He sat there for a minute and thought about it, and then he started drawing. It’s hard to tell a five year old that he’s got a good picture because five year olds aren’t all that great at drawing yet, but instead, we can praise the way he didn’t give up in that. He wanted a parent to do it for him, because he knew that it would look more like a house, but he did it himself. I said, “You didn’t feel like you could do that, but you did. That really takes grit and perseverance, and those are good qualities to have.” We can praise those qualities, because those are the things that will help our kids pursue their passions.
• 25:42 Ben: You can say things like, “You can work hard,” or, “You can learn things you didn’t know before.” In that case, it was, “You didn’t think you could do that, but you tried, you took a risk, and you did it.” It’s not about the quality of the picture and whether, technically, it looks like a house, or if it’s something that would be artistically sound. It’s about the effort, not the results. When we celebrate and encourage those qualities, those qualities drive success in many areas of life.

There are tremendous benefits when you make qualities like hard work and growth the focus of your praise.

• 26:29 Ben: Again, we want to be careful not to tie those things to their inherent self worth, but those are parts of our child’s identity that we can call out. With the picture example, if they say, “Look at the picture of my house,” instead of saying, “Oh, that’s a really nice house,” make objective observations about the picture. “Wow, you used a really dark green on the grass,” or, “You filled the entire page with color.” It’s a funny thing to do that takes a little bit of practice. It doesn’t come naturally. When I’m distracted and doing something else and they come over and show me something, I’ll say, “Oh yeah, that’s great.” I’m not listening to them.
• 27:28 It does require giving focus, attention, and being creative in the moment, but the more practice you have of looking for those things you can say as observations, instead of them looking to you for whether or not something they’ve created is worth something, they make those determinations for themselves. When one of the boys says, “What do you think of this? Do you like it?” I’ll turn the question back around on them and say, “What do you think of it?” I want them to think about their feelings and thoughts about it first.
• 28:15 Rachel: You don’t want them to be tied to someone else’s opinions about it.
• 28:27 Ben: Charla asks, “Do kids sense that you’ve changed the way you word it? My kids would look at me like I’m crazy if I commented on choosing a dark green.” This is something I’m still practicing on, so you can be creative. If they’re old enough to get the difference, it’s absolutely okay to sit down and go into the explanation with them and help them understand that you don’t want to tie your opinion of their skill to how much they’re worth to you. This is another way to reinforce their inherent sense of self worth. You choose to talk about the things they share with you in different ways.
• 29:23 Rachel: Hannah said in the chat, “I like to praise the progress they’ve made in their hard work.” The other day, our six year old came to me, and he’s had a hard time finding the books he likes to read. We finally stumbled on some that he likes to read, and he was so excited. He came to me and he said, “Mama, I almost finished this one book in a whole day!” I repeated, “Oh my gosh, a whole book in one day!” That takes a lot of work for a kid, to sit down and read for that long. It was only 80 pages, but still. Praise the progress they’ve made and what that takes. It takes patience to sit down and read for that long and be focused for that long. Things like that are more character traits than they are outward things, and those are things we want tied to our kids’ identity. They learn that whenever they have big projects, they have the ability to get to the end of those.
• 30:43 Ben: That’s not to say that you can never express your personal feelings about something they’ve done or about their skills. It’s really important to make a distinction between the two things: observation and objectivity vs. subjectivity. Be careful not to tie that to their identity. You can tell them, “I really love that. That’s what I think of it. What do you think of it?”

Your feelings and thoughts about them belong to you, and your children don’t have to inherit those from you.

They can have their own opinions about the things they accomplish.

• 31:36 Rachel: We’re not saying that you can never say, “Oh my gosh, I love this!” If we are being careful with the times that we say that, when we do say it, it’s going to matter so much more. There are times my eight year old has brought me these comic books he’s written, and he writes them all the time. On certain instances, he’s brought me one that’s completely brilliant. Usually, the first thing I do is take a picture of it and I send it to my mom. He knows that those are the times when I think it’s really, really good. Because I’m a writer, he understands that he has the ability to do that. He also knows that when I talk to him about things like story arc, I know what I’m talking about. When we recognize how good our children’s things are, they have more respect for the critiques we have to give them.
• 32:40 Ben: I definitely don’t want to burden you with the fear that if you respond in the wrong way, it’s going to do damage. Keep these things in mind as you’re interacting with your children, and don’t let them completely rule you so you feel like you have to watch every interaction.
• 33:11 Rachel: If you think about the times when people have told you, “That’s really great,” it’s kind of an empty praise. The question then is, “What’s great about it?” You want to know details, and that’s what we’re giving our kids, the details of things they executed well.
• 33:37 Ben: A symptom of your child taking on some form of American Idol Syndrome or having their identity wrapped up in their skill is that, if you do praise them, you see disappointment from them if you don’t have the same response from something else they’ve made. You see them trying to shape whatever it is they’re doing so that it will be something you like. When it comes to art, for example, art is really subjective. You could be talking about music, painting, or whatever. One of the difficult things as an artist is that, sometimes, you’ll make something that in your own subjective tastes is only okay, but for some reason, a lot of people love it. You’ll have something else you think is the most amazing piece of art you’ve ever made, and it’s met with crickets.
• 34:41 You can’t do it for those reactions from people. You’ve got to do it because it’s something you love to do, because you enjoy the process. Of course, you want to add beauty to the world and inspire people with your art and allow people to experience joy. That’s a natural byproduct of the love and effort you pour into the art you’re creating. Design is a little bit more cut and dry, and I’m not just talking about graphic design, but anything that solves a problem or a skill that meets an obvious need. There’s real objectivity to that. As the parent, if the child is designing something that meets a more obvious need, if you’re not the target market for that, it could be confusing for the child if you say, “Oh, that’s great.”
• 36:02 I grew up as a people pleaser, and in many ways, I still am. Some of that has been my desire to make something that makes a specific person smile. That has led me to create some really beautiful things, but I always ask myself, “How much more could I have done if I wasn’t worried about what this person thought or whether I would be as valuable to this person if I didn’t make this thing?”
• 36:38 Rachel: I’m still a recovering perfectionist. I’m super hard on myself.

Avoiding Idealism

• 36:56 Ben: This goes back the idealism of celebrity and thinking, “I want to have a lot of people love me, and if I can, then I’ll be secure.” That’s really similar to perfectionism, though perfectionism is a lot more focused on a single person or a few people.
• 37:23 Rachel: For me, it’s just myself. I have this standard set for myself that I have to get to, and it doesn’t have anything to do with anyone else.
• 37:37 Ben: You have this standard, but having such a high standard for yourself means you feel like you need to meet those expectations in order to be worthy of someone’s love. Right now, you may not even know who that somebody is. It may be something you experienced in your past. Maybe your parents got divorced, left, or you had a parent or guardian who was detached and didn’t really give you any attention unless you did something significant. You grow up with these habits in place, and you don’t know where they come from, but you work in that mode. You’ve made your own standards so high that now you’ve locked yourself in.
• 38:31 All of that comes back to your identity and your self worth. If you’re worth enough, then people will love and accept you as a part of community, and you’ll have the safety of that. With idealism, what people really want is significance. They want to be significant enough that enough people will like them that they’ll be secure in community. They’re looking for that in the wrong place.

One of the most important things we can do to avoid idealism is to foster a sense of community for our children.

• 39:10 Don’t let your immediate family be the only meaningful relationships your child has. This is one of those hard things about being a parent who works for themselves and all the busyness that goes with that. It can seem sometimes like you don’t have time or room in your life for outside relationships. Not only is it healthy for your kids, but it’s healthy for you. You’ve got to have community, and you can find it in many different ways. Meaningful relationships outside your immediate family will bolster your child’s sense of community and help them feel more secure in their self worth. It will remove their need to find significance in celebrity.
• 40:01 Going back to celebrating effort and not results, that idealism has everything to do with the results of great effort. Every once in a while, there’s that Cinderella story where somebody gets lucky, but 99.9% of the time, anybody you see who has achieved some kind of celebrity or great success has worked extremely hard to get there.
• 40:35 Rachel: That also goes back to our kids seeing us working hard. When we share the creative things we do with them, they realize that it does take work and they are going to be required to put in a lot of time to learn, grow, and to accomplish something as simple as a masterpiece. That’s not really simple.
• 41:10 Ben: Walking is really hard when you’re a baby. I always like to think of that when the boys say, “It’s so hard! I can’t do it.” I say, “Once upon a time, you didn’t know how to walk. You just kept trying and trying, and you kept falling on your butt.”

When Your Child is Terrible at Something They Love

• 41:36 Cory Miller asked, “What are some good alternatives to effectively lying to my children when they’re really terrible at something but want to improve, or they just love doing it, even though they’re just plain awful at it?” This goes back to making observations and focusing on the effort, not the results. The interesting thing is that sometimes we’re really good at doing things we don’t love, and sometimes we love doing things we’re not really good at. Where the two intersect, where we’re really good at doing something and we love doing it, that’s a gift when you can recognize it. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be other things in your life that you love doing that you’re not good at. Always reinforce the inherent worth of your child, and make observations and focus on the effort they’re making. You can say things like, “You really love doing that, don’t you?”
• 42:58 Rachel: Eliminating the words “good,” “bad,” “really terrible,” and “really great” from our praise vocabulary also helps with the need to tell our kids when something is really terrible. They will see for themselves, eventually, because they’re not dependent on someone else’s opinion. I think about some of those kids who would go to the American Idol tryouts and genuinely think that they were really good, and they would tell stories about how their parents told them, “You’re so great.”

Our kids become blind to evaluation when they’re dependent on our thoughts on what they do.

• 43:51 No parent really wants to tell their kid, “This is really bad.” We’re always going to lean toward the positive, but if we’re eliminating those opinions from our praise anyway, they’re going to figure that out for themselves. Kids are pretty smart, and they can understand things like, “Wow, I can’t really sing the melody,” unless somebody is telling them that they’re really good.

Bolstering Self Confidence

• 44:30 Ben: Gabrielle says, “An inverse of this topic, how do I bolster their view of their own talent without being misleading and giving them the confidence to keep growing?” If you can offer objective critique or observation about their skill level, doing so can really help, but you also may not be the most credible source for them. We experience this all the time. In our relationship, Rachel will tell me things or I’ll tell her things that I’ve learned. It’s not until we hear it from a source that we see as credible for that specific type of information that we accept that as truth.
• 45:18 For our children, it may be that you need to bring them to somebody that they believe can give them an objective critique or observation about their skill level. That doesn’t always solve the problem of somebody being hard on themselves. You still have to do the work of helping them understand that whether they’re great, good, or bad at something, you’re going to love them the same either way. That, coupled with somebody’s objective observation of their skill level, can help them to not be as hard on themselves and to adjust their thermostat for what their expectations of themselves should be.
• 46:07 Rachel: Supporting our kids, too, can speak volumes.
• 46:13 Ben: If your kid is really good, but you recognize that they’re really hard on themselves, what if they came home one day and the guitar you know they would love to have is sitting on their bed, waiting for them? That can speak volumes. You can show your support in other ways, it doesn’t always have to be verbal.

Supporting Siblings Individually

• 46:58 Charla asks, “How about the sticky situation when one child is particularly strong in an area, but the siblings aren’t so gifted in that? How can we encourage them in their particular talent independent of each other?” Even if you’re not the one making the comparisons, people have a tendency to compare themselves against one another. This comes back to the sense of self worth. If I don’t have a healthy sense of self worth, I want to compare myself with another person. If I’m looking at someone who seems more skilled than I am and it seems, from the outside, like they’ve got more support and more of a community around them, then it’s going to drive me to want to do more and improve, but in an unhealthy way.
• 47:54 I’m going to be down on myself and think, “I’m just not doing enough.” On the other side, I might look at somebody who’s less talented and feel like, “I’m doing pretty good.” It all comes back to that unhealthy sense of self worth. It’s a natural thing that we do, but as parents, we can help our children get out of that by really focusing on their inherent self worth and their unique worth. Say, “You’re a unique individual. I love you for who you are, not because you’re good at this thing.” From that foundation, you can offer critique as it’s useful.
• 48:45 Rachel: Our oldest is really talented with, specifically, comic book writing. He enjoys writing comics and drawing the pictures, and he’s got a really neat style, a great voice on the paper. I’m trying to think how we would encourage that in a way that’s different from the things we encourage with our other boys. The six year old has an art talent as well, but he uses a lot of beautiful color. That’s what I get from him. It has some personality, but not quite as much. The important thing is encouraging them in each of their different manifestations of that talent.
• 49:38 Be sure not to compare. Kids can get really good at comparing each other, too. I’ve heard it from our eight year old, who says, “You didn’t draw that person very well. Look at mine.” Your kids can feel, “I’m really good at this and you’re not that great.” Focus on the things they do well. If you look at art across the board, there isn’t one style that is known to be the “masterpiece style.” There are so many different forms of art.

If we can help our kids find their own form of art and not try to be someone else, we’re setting them on their own journey.

• 50:30 I think that’s really important. I struggle with this sometimes myself, because there are so many of us trying to live someone else’s journey. We see these things, we think we want them, and maybe it’s not for us. Helping our kids find their own journey and focus on it and run hard toward it is one of my goals as a parent.
• 51:03 Ben: That can be a huge mindset shift, but it’s so good to encourage that in our children. It can come down to something as simple as the language that we use, making those observations. When you do that in your children’s hearing, if you say, “I really like all the color you used,” your other child might think, “If I don’t use a lot of color, they’re not going to like this.”
• 51:35 Rachel: You can open up those conversations with them and say, “You know what, we all do things differently. This is what you do differently. This is what I see as your unique talent.”
• 51:47 Ben: Don’t say, “Wow, you used way more color than your brother did.”

Identifying & Dealing With Over-Confidence

• 52:01 Aaron Dowd asks, “How do you know if you or your child are being over-confident or too entitled?” Confidence is good, but over-confidence is an inflated sense of ability.
• 52:27 Rachel: It’s inflated around other people, too, thinking of yourself comparatively to other people. The over-confident people are the ones who make you feel like you’re not as good as them.
• 52:46 Ben: How do you know? What are the symptoms of that? That’s a great question. If you have the knowledge and expertise to make objective observations of your child’s skill level and you see them acting as if they have a skill level that’s beyond where they truly are, that seems like an obvious answer. If you don’t have that expertise or that knowledge, you may have to look outside. You may feel a sense of that, but it’s probably going to seem pretty obvious. You can help avoid that by offering that critique where you can and exposing them to the critique of experts. That has a way of being a tool for growth in our skills, showing us where we need to improve.
• 53:51 It also has a way of keeping us humble when we’re exposed to that. Don’t be afraid that you’re going to hurt your child’s feelings or sense of self worth if you give them critique. Their sense of self worth needs to be secure, and you need to do the work upfront so they understand that they are loved and supported no matter what. When they do, critique is a gift. It gives them useful information for how to grow, humility, and all of these things that will be so useful in their adult life.
• 54:42 Rachel: There are other things we can do as parents if we hear our children being over-confident. This has happened with our eight year old when he’s said something like, “I’m a really good artist. I draw things way better than Asa does.” I’ll usually try and pull him aside and say, “You know, Jadon, we all have our own unique expressions of these things, and some things that you do well maybe Asa doesn’t do well, but maybe some things that Asa does well, you don’t do well either. That’s part of who we are and our unique expression of the talents we have.” We can enter those conversations and let them know that we don’t always have the same amount of skill in every area.
• 55:38 There are some things that are stronger for some and some things that are weaker for some, and that doesn’t mean that we’re not talented at those things. It just means that we have a different expression of those things. Sometimes I try to be like another writer. When you’re first starting out, you read so much, and sometimes you read authors and you think, “I want to write like them!” When I’ve tried to do that, it hasn’t worked, because I have my own unique expression of how words come out onto a page. That doesn’t mean that I’m not as talented as those other people. There’s a reason we have such diversity in books, art, and things like that. We need that.
• 56:25 Encourage those things for your children, but also help them see that just because they’re really good at this one thing doesn’t mean that someone else isn’t, either. That can help with over-confidence. With entitlement, I also think of people believing they deserve something just because they’re them. We live in a different world than we did when we were kids. When we were in track meets, only the top three people got a ribbon. One thing we can do to help with that is to show our kids how much work it takes. We can help them realize that if they want to be a great artist like Oliver Jeffers, they have to be willing to put in the work. Sometimes, it’s not just the work of art, but the work of business.

We can fight entitlement in our kids by teaching them that a lot of work goes into being successful at anything.

• 57:37 Ben: The idea of the working artist who never sees the light of day because they want to stay true to their art and aren’t willing to do any of the other stuff comes from a big cultural issue where we perpetuate this idea. We grew up in it, and because we experience that, many of us don’t know any better and we perpetuate these ideas. Sometimes I’m on the opposite side of that. I’m not the parent who encourages and says, “Good job.” If I see them being too confident, I’ll want to take them down a notch. I mean well—I want humility for them, because that’s a tremendous gift.
• 58:40 Rachel: You don’t ever want your kid to be the one who says, “I’m better than everybody.”