The inevitable unintended consequence of years of bathing in the self-esteem cesspool. These kids were aways awarded trophies for just showing up; now they award themselves accolades for simply being alive.

Don´t worry academia will lower all standards so that their egos will not be bruised.
The indoctrination into the the realm of the incompetent will continue. Failure of indoctrination would mean that educators would actully have to work for a living and the union would find that unacceptable.

This has been festering since my generation were seniors in high school in 1963. Oddly, even our teachers agreed it was ´63 that the tide really began turning and the halls became filled with spoiled brats believing they (ahem, we...) were God´s gifts. Prosperity plants the seeds of its own demise.

Do read the whole thing. Powerful.

It starts with responsible grownup parents who have the courage to be leaders rather than pals with their kids. That will be the hard sell... too many parents (and I´m not talking about the unmarried ones in the ghettos and barrios) are immature and narcissistic themselves. Unfit to lead. Unfit to parent.

Right up until the moment where these self declared "gifted" children run up against someone who truly is gifted and their ego gets popped. The earlier that happens the better. Unfortunately, these deluded individuals sometimes make it all the way to adulthood and positions of authority before they come to the realization that they are mediocre at best.

#3, as a fellow Classmate of ´63, I must disagree. We had the highest SAT scores ever recorded, before or after "norming". We had reason to feel special: we were the healthiest, best educated generation ever...very few of us had blown up egos, at least not in my home town.
I, personally, blame the acceptance of jeans and tshirts everywhere, and the invention of the Sony Walkman, which gave us a soundtrack to our lives, right in our heads. Technology, education, and parents have done most of this!

Their perfect role model and example of successful expectations resides at the most prestigious address in the world (at least it was until he moved there).

The ban on TV ads for tobacco began in 1971.
It´s been very helpful in reducing smoking rates.

The binge drinking today is horrendous.
Kudos to MADD & affiliates for helping reduce the fatality rates on our highways.

May I suggest the further step to combat drinking...
banning TV ads for alcohol.
No more beer commercials.
Nor for any other kind of booze.

Also we never should have allowed pharmaceutical ads on TV.
Those should be banned.

We can combat some of this crap.
Education reform is a must.
And a very big topic for another time.
Reduce the number of years, and the costs, in short.

..and if I have to hear "kids are so much smarter than we were" one more time..

I refuse to recognize the kids of today as being smart until I consistently get the correct order I give at a drive-in.

They also lack empathy.
G-d forbid you say "No" to them
With the excess of electronics, they are even more self envolved. Social skills are minimal.

47 years ? Didn´t they take prayer out of schools in 1962 ?

I can thank God I graduated in 1962. In my experience, Narcissistic Personality Disorder is darn near impossible to treat. They have the most fragile egos or sense of self of any psychiatric disorder, along with in incredible sense of entitlement and lack of true empathy, although they can talk a good game. Their depressive episodes are very rarely major depressive episodes or biologically driven depression. Their periods of depression invariably follow periods in which their fragile sense of self is clobbered by life events that do not go in their favor. The depression ends quickly after some favorable events, most of the time occurring at the expense of others, allows them to temporarily save their fragile sense of self/ego from complete extinction. They are very harmful to others around them through clever verbal attacks and/or promulgating false information about their target. Suicide is very, very rare. It is futile to use anti-depressant medication. The only thing I´ve seen that helps a little, very little, are anti-manic medications. If you "see" one coming, turn around and quickly go in the opposite direction. For sure don´t marry one or expect a long term relationship with one without you going completely bonkers with a strong feeling of having been brainwashed. The hook is that when it is good, it is very, very good. However, you will soon discover when it is bad, it is dangerous to your mental health.

I printed this out and am sending it to various relatives with children owning egos the size of Philadelphia. (My grandchildren are included in the deluded group.)

This article just hits the nail on the head.

There´s one sitting in the white house right now...