Are we coddling today's children?

This is something I have thought about for a while, but something i saw recently really made me wonder. I drove by a school and on their billboard read a note about a seminar for “Coping with Middle School Stress”. MIDDLE SCHOOL STRESS?!?!? These are 10 – 14 year old children and they have stress? I have also witnessed a growth in children being deemed “classified”. When I was in school, it was not a good thing to be classified. Nowadays it seems parents push for their kids to be classified for things like ADD so that they can get extra time on standardized test and other “perks”. Parents are vehemently defending their children after they are caught misbehaving, saying they would never do that even when the child was witnessed by many people.

And also this whole ADD thing. It is another issue in and of itself, but it relates here. What happened to parents or teachers sitting down with a child, turning off all other distractions, and working with a child. I have a hard time with people who are diagnosed with this when all they need is someone to tell them they HAVE to do something in “X” amount of time. I DO believe this is a disorder in some people who legitimately need treatment for it, but it’s too rampant and too many people who claim to have a “mild case” of it.

So, are we coddling them? If this trend continues, what is the future going to be when corporations don’t care what your excuse is and they just want results?