The Botox culture harms children's self-esteem

The prevailing competition in our society is producing more and more children and young people with serious existential and psychosocial problems. We are currently playing the game: Who is to blame and who is responsible? Parents don't dare to educate, is one of several statements hanging in the air.

Many parents are afraid of offending or otherwise harming their children. They find it difficult to distinguish between different feelings, for example between sadness and frustration, just as they are unfamiliar with their own feelings.

It is not upbringing that educates children, but the inner and outer behaviour of parents and other adults.

First and foremost, they have great difficulty taking care of themselves and their adult lives when dealing with children. The fear of «doing harm» to children has been the main influence on parental leadership over the last two decades. A defensive style of leadership has emerged, under which neither children nor adults can develop well.

The fact that our attitudes and behaviour oscillate between extremes is unfortunate, but not new. We come from several centuries in which child rearing and school pedagogy were very hurtful. This was followed by three decades in which many adults panicked and tried to avoid dominating and indoctrinating children.

This was in keeping with the spirit of the times, but was more politically motivated than based on psychological and existential insights. It is hardly surprising that many children and young people lack experience of how to behave with boundaries, limits and demands. However, their parents themselves have not experienced being able to decide on a clear management style or a corresponding educational philosophy.

The adults are not doing well either

It is not upbringing that educates children, but the inner and outer behaviour of parents and other adults. Let me illustrate this with a few examples:

For more than a decade we have been living in a Botox culture where even intelligent and highly educated adults spend a lot of precious time and energy in narcissistic attempts to get the «right» surface, the «ideal» weight, muscles of the «right» size in the «right» place and so on.

Very few can withstand the pace of the labour market without serious consequences for their health. They lack an inner compass.

They have learnt to justify their actions by saying that it strengthens their «self-worth», which is a meaninglessly presumptuous term. It means something like social self-confidence, inflated to mitigate chronic anxiety and insecurity; the fear of failing and the fear of losing the competition for praise, attention, sex and the perfect life.

Everything is purely external.

Adults are not doing well in a competitive society either. No matter how much they work out and grow a trendy full beard, they hit the wall in their lives, their marriage and in their parental role, and only very few can keep up with the pace of the labour market without serious consequences for their health and quality of life. They crucially lack an inner compass.

Children adopt this obsession with meaningless things very early on. Even as five-year-olds, many are preoccupied with how fat, stupid, ugly and uncool they are instead of being happy and feeling secure. Once these feelings have become ingrained in a child's soul, no one can remove them or pedagogise them away.

What remains is a lack of self-esteem and a negative self-image. This combination leads to great suffering and self-destructive behaviour throughout adolescence and well into adulthood.

I have never met a plastic surgeon, family doctor, psychologist or therapist who had the knowledge and courage to tell a 30-year-old mother of two young children how disastrously she affects their self-esteem and self-confidence when she decides to buy a smooth face. The same applies to the 40-year-old man who is convinced that it will be easier to find a new wife if he manages to look like the person he wants to be.

Most people in power are very afraid of the inwardly directed fellow human being or confuse this effort with self-centredness and individualism.

Isn't that their own business? Of course it is. But someone has to make them aware of the impact their decision will have on the people closest to them and on society as a whole.

If children, young people and adults are to be able to make qualified personal decisions, they need to be clear about possible conflicts between what the environment and external authorities want and what their own inner compass - their sense of self - tells them.

Never before has the public space been so full of slogans such as «What do you feel like doing yourself?», «Just be yourself!», «What does your gut say?».

When the role models are externally controlled quiet pedallers

The problem with children is that they do not develop any essential wisdom, life skills or a sense of self unless they experience qualified, empathetic interaction and resistance from parents, teachers and grandparents.

The reason why they don't get these vital nutrients is that their adults are often outwardly driven «pleasers», conformists and careerists who avoid important conflicts and serious feelings. You can't encourage your child to reflect and empathise independently if you yourself have to do and think the same as your best friend or coach.

Children are as competent as they have always been, but they are not universally competent and do not always know themselves or know better. That's why they need dialogue-based guidance from adults, including parents, who recognise the difference between want and need and have the courage to stand up for core values.

At the centre of these values is the eternal question: «How can I stand up for my personal integrity and most important needs without violating other people's boundaries or preventing them from getting what they need?»

For several centuries, moral principles, rules and prohibitions functioned relatively well as regulators of the behaviour of children and adults in the public sphere. A good life was a conformist life, the quality of which was measured by the ability to become one with the wallpaper.

Many of the "over-praised" children become insecure, anxious, nervous teenagers and adults.

Today, we no longer have a moral consensus. We live in a time when external compasses point in all directions at once. If we want healthier people and stronger communities, we must endeavour to create a better inner compass. This is a steep road, because most people in power are very afraid of the inwardly directed fellow human being or confuse this effort with self-centredness and individualism.

There are indications that some parents have capitulated to the fear that they will lose their children. This often manifests itself in the fact that they intensify the language, which is already escalated in superlatives, even more - and thus completely prevent the children from developing a healthy sense of self: «Super!», «Really, really, really good, my darling!», «Super great, super fantastic!»

Impossible expectations of yourself

It all ends up sounding like «Voice Junior» (a Danish talent show for children), where the children's smiles freeze as their parents and siblings join the fan club. Only a small minority of children have such a well-developed sense of self that they don't mind all the noise. But they are far too few.

Many of the «over-praised» children become insecure, anxious, nervous teenagers and adults who make completely impossible demands on themselves in every context, unless they develop super-awesome, anti-social egos instead.

They are not the product of parents who lack the courage to make demands, but of parents who have no idea how destructive their shrill praise and admiration is.