Adversity - Why are we so weak?

So, what's going on with kids today?

They're incredibly sensitive/emotional, more kids are living at home without a job, and stress and anxiety are at an all time high.

Parents seem dumbfounded by this question?

To find the answer, perhaps I need to rephrase my question; What is it about the way parents are raising children today that makes them fragile, dependent, and prone to stress and anxiety?

The truth is the lack of adversity our kids experience. We have taken away the main component that builds self-esteem and character in humans.

We see this in many areas of nature: 

• Skeletal structure. No stress, fragile bones. 

• Muscles - the less stress - the greater the atrophy (loss of size and strength)  

• Immune system? The less exposure, the greater the risk of sickness.

So, the less exposure, the less adaptation.

Many philosophers and religious authors have written about the strength gained during stressful times.

Nietzsche said, “that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger”

Meng Tzu, the Chinese philosopher said, “When heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on any man, it will exercise his mind with suffering, subject his sinews and bones to hard work, expose his body to hunger, put him to poverty, place obstacles in the paths of his deeds, so as to stimulate his mind, harden his nature, and improve wherever he is incompetent. ”

Romans 5:3  Paul said, “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance"

As a parent and closet neuroscientist, I understand the neurology of taking care of our children at all cost - its innate. However, the cost of alleviating our pain by rescuing them is nothing compared to the pain that will come from the lessons lost by the child.

Pain is a good teacher

There is a saying, “we should prepare our children for the road, not the road for the children.”

There is a strong urge to save our children from the bumps and bruises we experienced on our road in life; however, the strength gained in those bumps and bruises have made us who we are today.

It would serve us all well to adopt the message of Marcus Aurelius', "The obstacle is the way; the impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way, becomes the way."