Elder Henry B. Eyring once told the true story of Jack Steel, a friend of his at Stanford University. During World War II, Jack received the second highest decoration a soldier can receive: the Distinguished Service Cross. He was awarded it because of gallant actions performed while defending his fellow soldiers in battle. Steel's platoon had been assigned to capture an important bridge. As they walked down a long slope, they could see that the bridge was heavily defended. When the enemy on the bridge spotted Jack's platoon they immediately opened fire. A machine gunner trained his gun on the men highest on the hill and began working his way down, with devastating effects. The men of the platoon were rapidly being killed or wounded.

In that moment, Jack Steel saw that the men who began running back up the hill were also being hit. It soon became clear, that if he wanted to live, he would have to charge straight at the bridge. Therefore, grabbing his Browning automatic rifle, he ran toward the bridge, screaming and firing from the hip. The defenders on the bridge were so surprised by his actions that they immediately deserted the bridge, leaving Jack to capture it single-handedly. His bold attack not only captured the bridge but also saved the rest of his platoon farther up the hill. Elder Eyring concluded the story with this note:

Effort and gallantry aside, they had attacked the wrong target! Someone had made a serious mistake in their directives. The bridge they really needed to capture was still out there and still needed to be taken.

I believe that many parents, striving to do the best they can but having less success with their children than they would like, may be following the wrong directives. The result may be that they struggle more than they need to. We will examine an area that are essential in teaching our youth: first, the connection between building self-esteem and rebellion.

Guilt Warning!

Many of you reading the following chapters have young children and will wish to decrease the chances they will go through significant rebellion in their lives. Our discussion of parenting relationships, discipline, and so forth will help you look more closely at the delicate interplay between parent and child, helping you focus on what it is you're really trying to accomplish.

However, many of you may have children whose pride and rebellion have already led them down destructive paths. Their reckless choices have already brought you grief and second-guessing. As you read these chapters on “prevention” you will be tempted to blame yourself for not following this principle or that. In all likelihood you are already guilt waiting to happen”!

Please be aware that Lucifer, the great accuser, would have you believe that your child's poor choices are strictly your fault and that you are solely responsible for the resulting chaos. You are also aware that—in saner moments—your heart whispers that though you could have done things differently, you practiced the best parenting you knew how to do. The fact that you are reading these words attests to your desire to do all you can and to be a true blessing when the rebel is ready to return.

That said, let's now turn our attention to the powerful forces that seek to put our youth on faulty foundations.

Generation Me

The last four decades have seen a dramatic shift in societal belief patterns. These changes are best identified by seeing them through the eyes of Baby Boomers, the large demographic group born shortly after World War II.

Immediately before and after World War II, there was a great deal of predictability to life. Soldiers came home, started families, and moved forward with their lives. Their children, the so-called Baby Boomers, were born to parents who had grown up with a clear set of values and expectations. These parents, frequently called the Greatest Generation, had survived the Great Depression and carried on with lives similar to their parents.

The decade of the sixties exploded in a cultural convulsion. The relative prosperity of the fifties had freed up children to question and explore. Growing Baby Boomers were told they were supposed to “do your own thing,” “find your bag,” and “question authority.” Old rules and mores were challenged as never before, giving rise to unprecedented social change and the excesses of the hippie movement.

As the sixties became the seventies, the thrill of unrestrained freedom gave way to disillusionment. The drug culture of the sixties failed to yield the spiritual nirvana it promised. Proud rebels found themselves addicted and miserable. As a result, excess gave way to searching and introspection. That search led to “the journey to find the self,” by looking deep inside. And thus was born the self-esteem movement.

Ultimately, boomers came to believe that bliss was found after achieving some type of inner peace. The best indicator of that bliss or peace was their level of “self-esteem.” In other words, “Do you like yourself, finally, at the end of your journey?” “Are you,” as one psychologist called it, “self-actualized?”

For boomers, the search for self-esteem became all encompassing. They had seen their parents tied closely to societal expectations and didn't always like the results. They weren't sure they wanted to be June Cleaver, wearing a dress and pearls to dinner each night. The journey for self-esteem began to be seen as freedom from the expectations of others in favor of living by your own expectations.

In her book, Generation Me , Jean Twenge cites a 1977 teacher's manual that has, as its core philosophy for students, “I am a self and you are a self, and I don't want to be made to feel guilty if I am not like you, nor should you be made to feel guilty if you are unlike me!”

The message was clear—the development of childhood self ego was our most critical task, eclipsing all others. And, like most movements, the self-esteem movement began with the most noble of intentions. Unfortunately, it resulted in unforeseen consequences.

As Baby Boomers became educators (self-actualized educators at that!), they went to work rewriting school curricula. Enlightened boomers made sure that the development of self-esteem became a central theme of education. This was fueled, in part, by the belief that as you increased a child's self-esteem you would increase their academic performance.

Schools moved as never before to help shore up the egos of their students. Twenge writes:

As part of this effort, children were taught to play the Ungame (where everyone wins) as opposed to Monopoly, a game that fostered competition, hurt people's feelings, and resulted in winners and losers. Honor rolls were taken down from school hallways. If there were any school-yard competitions, such as a 100-yard dash, everyone got a ribbon so they'd know that “everyone is a winner in their own way!”

The logic was (and still remains in many areas), that in any endeavor, some will succeed and others will fail. And though this is gratifying to the winner it is emotionally destructive to the loser. In an effort to shelter kids from that sense of failure, schools and youth programs, such as the Girl Scouts, eliminated any program that might leave a child feeling anything but a winner—regardless of effort or performance.

Unfortunately, as school districts began to evaluate the results of these self-esteem programs, they learned they'd been attacking the wrong bridge. The state of California , for instance, spent $250,000 to raise the self-esteem of California students by promoting self-esteem programs. When a book sponsored by the California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility was published, it concluded with a surprising, well-documented result: self-esteem isn't linked to academic achievement, good behavior, or any other outcome the task force was formed to address! .

Why? Shouldn't teaching children to like themselves more improve the way they deal with life? Roy Baumeister has done extensive research in the effect of self-esteem training. His conclusion:

In the rush to build self-esteem, self-control and self-discipline had been deemphasized. “You are great regardless of what you do” had the effect of telling many kids, “so don't worry about doing too much”. (Unfortunately for the Church, this attitude may be contributing to the rising rate of missionaries who return home early from their missions. Young men and women who do not see the need for self-discipline, when combined with an increased emphasis on “taking care of me” may be more likely to walk away from stressful situations, such as missions.)

Baby Boomers had sought to find themselves and to feel good about themselves by building their self-esteem. However, they placed the self-esteem cart before the horse. Their children were told they were “great” from the moment they were born, regardless of anything they did or didn't do. Self-esteem had indeed trumpedself-control or self-discipline.

BYU professor Catherine Thomas explained at a BYU devotional:

I agree wholeheartedly with Sister Thomas. For many years, I sought to help those with “low self-esteem” feel better about themselves. Unfortunately, there never seemed to be enough love and support for some people, and that unconditional support seemed to disappear down an emotional black hole. For others, early abuse or trauma seemed to never give up its icy grip on a battered ego. Cheery expressions of “You're great just the way you are!” were greeted with skepticism and pained laughter. Only now, do I better understand the missing pieces to the puzzle and my therapeutic approach is much different.

Like everyone else, I incorporated the same principles that many parents and teachers did concerning self-esteem programs—believing that increasing self-esteem would result in higher discipline and self-control. Unfortunately, in the rush to build esteem independent of anything else, we often fostered the very thing that shook our premortal world—pride.

The full title of Twenge's book is: Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable Than Ever Before . Does that sound like any youth you know? As we pump up a disembodied self-esteem—you are great no matter what trouble you getinto—we run the risk of developing a generation of narcissists instead.

The generation now in their teens and twenties were raised on a steady diet ofself-esteem-ism. Early on, they have been told they are wonderful “just the way you are.” And because of that “you can do anything you want to do.”

“Wait!” some will ask. “Are you telling me there is something wrong with telling a child ‘I love you just the way you are'?” Not at all. Again, what starts out with good intentions can produce the opposite result. Within a home, loving parents build a child up when they honestly express their feelings, independent of anything the child has done.

The difficulty comes when society concludes that any criticism of a child's actions and behavior would irreparably damage the child. This is often paired with the idea that higher self-esteem drives achievement. The false assumption is that we can compliment a child into higher grades, while criticism and critique forever scar their development.

This philosophy is clearly on display on the hit television show American Idol. Young people come from all over the country to audition for a chance to become a pop music idol. Without musical accompaniment, they audition for the judges who either reject them or send them on to the national competition. For the first few weeks of the show, we see performer after performer with little or no musical talent. When the judges reject their audition, many stand in stunned silence. Others rush out to be comforted by supportive friends and/or family.

What is astonishing is the amazing gap between these contestants' actual talent and their over-inflated sense of skill. They have little musical talent—but it becomes painfully obvious that no one has ever told them so. Raised with an unrealistic “you can do anything you put your mind to” mind-set, they may spend time focusing on areas other than where their real strengths lie. When rejected, these would-be pop stars stomp off, complaining that the judges just don't understand.

The result of the self-esteem movement has often been just the opposite of what was envisioned. Many young adults, by their own admission, are unprepared to enter a world that will judge them on the quality of their work and does not give ribbons for just showing up. When they are fired, they blame their boss or the circumstance and sigh, “Hey, it just wasn't for me!” (If I'm great, then those who don't like me have something wrong with them!)

This attitude is exemplified in a recent “People” magazine article about a celebrity who had left his seven months' pregnant wife to be with another female celebrity instead. The public's response when the new couple was put on the magazine's cover? One fan wrote, “I was excited to see [the new girlfriend] and future stepdaughter, on the cover. It's refreshing to see that her fiancé chooses to be with her because of love and not with [the former wife] just because they have children together” (Kristy Nichols, Letter to the Editor, People, Sept. 13, 2004). In other words, you should just take care of you, regardless of the effect it might have on anyone else—even your kids.

Our children and youth are swimming in a culture of me-ism. It surrounds them and forms their thinking and habits. They are told that no one is more important than they are and they should always focus first on themselves, putting everyone else second. Self-esteem, self-worth, self-concept: Satan would define all of them if he could. After thousands of years, he is still trying to dictate what we do and what we will be.

Self-esteem-ism, which starts with the greatest of intentions, can easily become Lucifer's plan of deception tied up in a politically correct wrapper. He teaches that we should like ourselves, just the way we are. When we do something we shouldn't, it's not our fault. We are not responsible because we should be able to do anything we want to do. It is the Korihor plan of self-improvement!

Is there any place for self-esteem? Of course. But first, children must come to understand how Satan defines esteem when compared with the plan of salvation.

The Divine Paradox

In Latter-day Saint theology we are presented with a series of conflicts. As part of the great plan of salvation, we learn we have the potential to become like our Heavenly Father. In essence, we are gods in embryo. Patriarchal blessings reveal that we are part of a covenant lineage, recipients of all the blessings promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Our faithfulness results in our becoming the “seed of Abraham” and “the elect of God” (D&C 84:34).

The more we understand, the more we realize the extent to which we've been blessed. As we count our blessings—one by one—we can see that we really are somebody! Talk about self-esteem! To see our potential, to know what we know, to be blessed with what we have: truly we are a blessed “royal generation,” chosen to come forth in the last dispensation. “Surely,” we marvel, “there has never been a generation like us on the face of the earth.”

Yet, in the midst of all that spiritual revelry, we turn to the scriptures and might become confused. For example, we read where Moses is brought to stand on a high mountain and is given the glorious and sweeping “vision” of all things (see Moses 1:7–8). This panoramic sweep of God's creation is similar to the one enjoyed by the Brother of Jared, Enoch, Nephi, Abraham, Peter, James, and John, and Joseph Smith. In a wonderful celestial way, the minds of these prophets were expanded to see all God's creations. This vision is the reason the prophet Mormon could say “Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing” (Mormon 8:35).

After the vision closes for Moses, he is left to himself. Obviously, he is stunned by what he has just seen. Even more, this adopted son of Pharaoh, looks closely at himself and exclaims, “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed” (Moses 1:10; emphasis added). Nothing? That's pretty harsh. Didn't he mean nothing when compared with God? Surely King Benjamin could clarify this idea. Said he: “And now I ask, can ye say aught of yourselves? I answer you, Nay. Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth; yet ye were created of the dust of the earth; but behold; it belongeth to him who created you” (Mosiah 2:25). Then, so that we wouldn't miss the point, he also said, ”For behold, are we not all beggars?” (Mosiah 4:19).

From a self-esteem point of view, these types of statements should scar us for life! However, when we look at prophets like Moses and Mormon, don't these brethren appear to have “high self-esteem”? Weren't they men of great accomplishment? As we look at their lives, we would have to agree that their “nothingness” did not appear to emotionally hinder them in any way.

Curiously, Lucifer's self-esteem would also seem to be in pretty good shape. By all accounts, he likes himself a lot and wants us to be like him, to worship him! The same could also be said of Nehor, Korihor, and Sherem. For that matter, the world's most bloody despots, from Hilter to Stalin, would probably have qualified as men of high self-esteem.

So, if focusing on self-esteem is not the answer, then what?

Divine-Esteem

In chapter 13 we will look closely at the addiction recovery program of the Church. The first step of that program begins with the words, “I admit I am powerless . . .” Recently, a sister stopped to visit after a twelve-step meeting and remarked that she was having a great deal of difficulty with the word “powerless.” “I am not powerless!” she said earnestly. As we talked she shared some things about her childhood. She described a family filled with dysfunction and pain. Powerless, as defined for her in word and deed, meant being helpless and at risk for abuse. She equated the idea of being powerless with being weak and vulnerable.

I then read her the following quote from Elder Neal A. Maxwell:

Our Heavenly Father does not define powerlessness as worthlessness. This great Being, who loves us more than we can know, pleads that we will become completely and utterly dependent on Him. If we do, He will “mount [us] up with wings as eagles” (Isaiah 40:31). He will not let us fall or fail. When we admit we can do nothing of ourselves, we are then ready to admit “I can do all things through Christ [who] strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).

On the other hand, what this good sister experienced while growing up was exactly the opposite. To be helpless was to be hurt, to be taken advantage of. To be powerless meant to be unable to stop someone from taking advantage of her. As she grew, she concluded she would never again need anyone—she would not be powerless.

Powerless, in the Lord's lexicon, has an exact definition. The natural man, full of the spirit of pride, believes he is
powerful in his own sphere. He takes control, he learns to dominate, he makes sure he gets what he wants. At the same time, this natural powerful man “is an enemy to God.” He is not just incompatible—he is an enemy. Why an enemy? Because he does not listen to or follow the whisperings of the Spirit; he listens only to his own set of wants. And he remains at odds with his Maker, “unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit” (Mosiah 3:19), bringing his will in subjection to the Lord. When we finally place that will on the altar, with a broken heart and contrite spirit, the Lord is then able to make the “mighty change in us, or in our hearts” (Mosiah 5:2).

When the Lord changes a heart, the change is dramatic. The self-powerful “becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love.” This “new creature in Christ” is “willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father” (Mosiah 3:19; 2 Cor. 5:17).

I am convinced that if we could help our children increase in divine-esteem (dependency on God), rather than self-esteem (dependency on self), the more confident they would be in solving daily problems and difficulties. They would also be less likely to fall prey to worldly solutions.

As it is, too many children believe in a philosophy best stated by William Ernest Henley's poem ”Invictus”:

Wouldn't we rather want our children to follow Orson F. Whitney's response:

It was with such knowledge that Moses performed powerful miracles, all the time seeing himself as powerless when compared with his Maker. This is the same spirit that compelled a prophet and a boy—Elisha and his servant—to stand before the approaching army and have Elisha calmly declare, “Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them” (2 Kings 6:16). They were powerless when compared to man's standards; they were unbeatable when teamed with God.

The notion of complete surrender may seem, to some, at odds with Latter-day Saint belief in self-reliance. We teach
that fathers are responsible to provide for their families. We are warned against getting into debt. We have classes in
emergency preparedness and food storage. In a temporal sense, we believe we are to be self-reliant. In actuality, even our sense of “self-reliance” is a mirage. We rely, not on ourselves, but on the Lord to provide jobs and financial means to help us accomplish these things. We are instructed to pray for wisdom about how we are to use the means placed into our hands. And, in all things, we give thanks to the Lord for his help. Even in our self-reliance we are divinely dependent.

One Latter-day Saint, struggling to deal with painful addictions, sought to balance the idea of self-reliance against the powerlessness she felt when trying to overcome her weaknesses. As she healed, she came to understand her reliance on the Savior. She also began to see the “vanity” of thinking we were intended to “do it” on our own.

Lucifer would have us believe differently. In a classic piece of anti-Christ wisdom, Korihor taught his followers that “every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature” and that “every man conquered according to his strength.” These are the justifications for believing that “whatsoever a man did was no crime” ( Alma 30:17). They could do whatever they wanted to without the inconvenience of consequence. That left them free to outsmart or outmuscle weaker competitors—it's just business, after all.

The Surrendered Life

To help insulate our children from Satan's temptations, our goal, as parents, should be to teach our children how to live a surrendered life—one directed by the Savior. The more they trust the Lord, the less they fear. “Look unto me in every thought”; the Savior invites, “doubt not, fear not” (D&C 6:36). Removing this fear removes one of Satan's greatest tools in the battle for souls. He will attempt to use fear to entice children to follow the crowd, to give in to peer pressure.

Not surprisingly, then, surrender and trust are assigned a negative connotation in today's world. It is not fashionable to be meek! We are taught that to get ahead in life, you must be in charge, be self-assured and confident. Dependency and trust may be harder to learn. Author Richard Eyre explains the
difference between the two:

This is the formula for every success workshop imaginable! Anything less is an invitation for failure. The only thing missing is the “dress for success” and “power tie” combination from the 1980s!

On the other hand, what is it the Savior invites us to do?

Brother Eyre continues:

There is nothing in a surrendered life that suggests that this is to be a life of mediocrity and misery. On the contrary, this path leads to service and joy. Children are bombarded daily with Type A images. Those images, from sport stars to celebrities, look appealing and sound like the path to happiness. The media rarely features Type B Saints. For this reason, the best examples of a surrendered life will always come from within the walls of children's homes and in the lives of their Church leaders and in our testimonies.

One disclaimer: If we or our children say to the Lord, “I'll go where you want me to go,” then we need to be prepared to go to places other than where we'd planned. For those of us who prefer tightly structured lives, this willingness to be “led by the Spirit,” not “knowing beforehand” (1 Nephi 4:6) may be uncomfortable at first. For many Latter-day Saints, this may be the most difficult part of living a surrendered life.

Is There Any Place for Self-Esteem in the Surrendered Life?

If we look at Church leaders who have lived surrendered lives, self-esteem and self-confidence appear not to be an issue. There is great power in a Joseph Smith, standing chained and shackled at Richmond Jail and rebuking his guards for their vile comments (see History of the Church, 3:208), or in a youthful Joseph F. Smith, with a gun to his face, when asked if he were a Mormon, who boldly responded, “Yes, siree; dyed in the wool; true blue, through and through!” (The Life of Joseph F. Smith [Salt Lake City: The Deseret News Press, 1948], 189).

Latter-day Saints should be filled with self-confidence; the question is whether it comes from trusting ourselves, “the arm of flesh,” or whether we have surrendered that confidence to the Lord, knowing that “in his strength I can do all things” (2 Nephi 4:34; Alma 26:12). With that surrender we have the quiet confidence that we are living the life the Lord intends of us. Doubt dissipates and faith remains.

As a church, how are we doing in this regard? Earlier, I referred to the excellent study by Brent Top and Bruce Chadwick in which the authors explored the effect of religion in the lives of LDS youth with regard to self-esteem. While they concede that a number of factors—friends, clothes, physical appearance—all play a role for teenagers, the influence of religion had been ignored by most researchers who study teenage self-esteem.

To this end, they gathered information from nearly six thousand LDS high school students in the United States , Great Britain , and Mexico . Their findings provide solid evidence of the increased sense of self-worth by youth who understand the idea of the surrendered life. The researchers concluded:

The study points out that the strength of this religiosity is more a function of internal factors (spiritual experiences, personal prayer, scripture study) than it is of external behaviors (professed religious beliefs, family religious practices, attendance at church). They found that the greater number of private spiritual experiences a child has and the more the child understands what they are experiencing, the better they feel about themselves, and the more they achieve. They also found striking correlations to self-esteem and the role of parents, which we will discuss in a later chapter.

These findings cannot be overemphasized. Their implications should drive much of what we do as parents. When children learn to rely on the Lord, on their own, they report higher self-esteem, increased self-confidence, and greater happiness.

These findings run counter to conventional psychological wisdom that tries to paint religion as a demeaning and restricting force in people's lives. To the contrary, it points to the power of a surrendered life and the positive effect it has in all other aspects of a child's daily living.

The Wrong Bridge?

At the beginning of this chapter we alluded to Elder Eyring's friend Jack Steel and his gallantry in attacking the wrong bridge in World War II. In trying to strengthen our youth, parents and youth leaders might mistakenly attack the wrong bridge—resorting to constant praise in an effort to build up their child. Parents and leaders may foolishly avoid giving any criticism so as to not damage tender egos. Conversely, rebelling youth often face an avalanche of criticism in an attempt to stop their destructive course. Between the two extremes is support and accountability.

Elder Richard G. Scott once shared a sacred experience. Strong impressions came to him during a period of time when he was struggling to do a work the Lord had given him. In prayer, he told the Lord he feared the assignment was beyond his personal capacity to fulfill. In response, the Lord told him, “Testify to instruct, edify, and lead others to full obedience, not to demonstrate anything of self. All who are puffed up shall be cut off.” And then the Lord said to him, “You are nothing in and of yourself, Richard.” That was followed by counsel on how to be a better servant (“Acquiring Spiritual Knowledge,” in Speeches of the Year, 1993 [ Provo : Brigham Young University Press, 1994], 8).

Helping our children find inner strength through surrender is a delicate dance. When they are very young, teaching them to obey is easy; simple compliance is assured if you are punitive enough. However, simple compliance is not our goal. Teaching our kids to recognize and rely on the Spirit is much more difficult because it is more art than science. Learning to trust the Lord and surrendering to His guidance may be something even we as parents struggle with. As a result, we may be hesitant to stress it with our family. May I humbly suggest our children may understand this concept better than we do?

King Benjamin became king just as the Nephites were emerging from the great Nephite dark ages. At least three hundred years separated King Benjamin from Enos, during which there was little known spiritual guidance among Lehi's descendants. After so much time, it took the preachings of many “holy men” to overcome “the stiffneckedness of the people.” Finally, through persistence, Benjamin succeeded in achieving “peace in the land” (Words of Mormon 1:17–18). They became a righteous people, worthy to take upon themselves the name of Christ.

Earlier we wrote about how the natural man is an enemy to God. The Lord's goal is for us to become “as a child” (Mosiah 3:19). In other words, King Benjamin recognized that the opposite of the prideful man is the naturally submissive child, already meek and humble. It is only as children grow older that they become otherwise.

While serving as president of Ricks College , Henry B. Eyring observed that as parents “we make the mistake, too often, of putting our efforts and concerns as parents into keeping [children] submissive to us and to our leadership. The real question is, ‘How do we transfer that natural submissiveness of our children to the Lord Jesus Christ? How do we help our children follow the Savior in submissiveness?'” (“Family Followership,” Ensign, April 1973, 30; emphasis added).

This may be the greatest challenge in all parenthood. When children are small we can control them in a variety of ways. Again, if our goal is their strict obedience, we can find many approaches—even detrimental ones—to keep them obedient. But, as President Eyring suggests, the ultimate goal is not to have them submissive to us. We want them to become independent, functional adults. We want them to transfer that submissiveness to the Lord. Elder Eyring goes on to suggest that, early in their lives, we need to “see the problem as helping them to fall in line behind us, in a line led by the Savior” (ibid.).