Bill Gates' speech, love him or hate him, comes pretty close to hitting the
nail on the head with this--especially for parents of teenagers!  To anyone
with kids of any age, or anyone who has ever been a kid, here's some advice
Bill Gates recently dished out at a high school speech about 11 things they
did not learn in school.  He talks about how feel-good politically correct
teachings created a full generation of kids with no concept of reality and
how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.  Here's what he
said:

Rule 1: Life is not fair--get used to it.

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem.  The world will expect
you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high
school.  You won't be a vice-president with a car phone, until you earn
both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.  He
doesn't have tenure.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity.  Your grandparents had
a different word for burger flipping--they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about
your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are
now.  They got that way from paying your bills; cleaning your clothes and
listening to you talk about how cool you are.  So before you save the rain
forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the
closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers but life has
not.  In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give
you as many times, as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear
the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters.  You don't get summers off and
very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself.  You have to
do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life.  In real life people actually have to
leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds.  Chances are you'll end up working for one.