I completely agree about the excesses of the self-esteem craze. My kids were in a gymnastics program once where, at the end, there was a mini "olympics" and everybody got a gold medal. Pathetic. (Admittedly, this was in San Francisco.)

That being said, I think it's too early to tell what this will turn out to have been: a harbinger of decadence or an overreaction against previous generations' inhumane treatment of children. There was an awful lot of violence and degradation to react against; still is, of course, but surely less so than there used to be. It's understandable if, in the course of correcting that, the pendulum swang too far the other way for a while (a generation, say). Signs are beginning to appear of American society waking up from this nonsense. I hope it does.

Oh and in the process, perhaps we can also lose the sickening "everything revolves around the children" parenting style that goes along with it.