The Coddleds

There were the Baby Boomers, Generation X, Gen Y, and the maligned Millennials. Meet the Coddleds. That's my term but it fits. Today's kids are coddled and overprotected. They seldom do anything that isn't under adult supervision so they have no experience of making their own decisions or dealing with problems on their own.
Schools offer hot breakfasts and hot lunches to students that are not, for the most part, wanting for anything. By the time a kid is in grade 7, he can make his own lunch (earlier, really.) Breakfast can be hot at home, too. Fry an egg, make toast, cook some oatmeal in the microwave. The breakfast sandwich that arrives for those who ordered and paid for it, is cold, gelatinous, and not appetizing. It is fast food at its worst. More time is spent filling forms, collecting money, and distributing hot food than it would take to make or bring your own.
Kids have pre-tests. Not to evaluate what they know before taking a unit but so that they can practise for the real thing. They don't try too hard. Why bother? They'll get another chance and they won't get a zero.
Some kids are bullied. Now everyone is hyper-aware, it seems that the reporting (tattling) of bullying is its newest form. 
No sport, activity, or play can be initiated and managed without adults. The tiniest injury is life- threatening and enormously painful. An elementary kid came to me with the tiniest mark on his chin. He had "stabbed" himself with his pencil earlier, (I didn't ask more), and he wanted to go to the office for an ice pack. I told him, no. The "injury" wouldn't warrant a scab. Perhaps he should have gotten the ice for his overheated brain.
Does this over-protectiveness benefit the kids in the long run? NO. They don't know how to make their own decisions, lack basic life skills, and when things go wrong, look for mom, dad or someone else to "fix" everything. They are left without resources they should have developed along the way. Generation Coddled faces a tough road.

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