Stoltzfus, K. (2017, November 21). No More Easy A’s: Classroom Can Be a Breeding Ground for Grit (Q&A).

When positive-psychology expert and author Caroline Adams Miller began parenting in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was the height of the self-esteem movement and what Miller dubs the “everyone’s a winner era.” She noticed that many of her children’s peers attended the kinds of ceremonies where everyone got a medal. Their schools inflated grades or threw them out the window altogether. Parents lowered expectations and went to great lengths to make children feel special, boosting mediocrity in the process. Miller describes this age group (who are now millennials) as the “bubble-wrapped generation.”