There was a brief period in the history of human development in which it was imagined that making children "feel good" about themselves would have a positive effect on children's ability to learn facts and adapt to social norms. This period is now over, and good riddance. Let's tell these fucking kids just how wrong they are about things.

The Washington Post reports that what you've known ever since you reached adulthood is absolutely true: you can't be mollycoddling these god damn kids every time they wipe their ass, these days.

A growing body of research over three decades shows that easy, unearned praise does not help students but instead interferes with significant learning opportunities... In study after study, children rewarded for being smart become more likely to shy away from hard assignments that might tarnish their star reputations.

All these years of instilling kids with "high self esteem" has produced a generation of Lisa Simpsons, desperately craving their next gold star or extra-credit-inflated A++ grade like so many heroin addicts sucking any old dick, for heroin, of education. And after all that we still have city college systems with a 7% graduation rate (Chicago, you mollycoddlers) and the worst state education grade in America (looking at you South Dakota, you back-patters).

Tell a kid he's dumb today. For his own good.

[WaPo. Photo of Dick Cheney's wife destroying our future: AP]