Verified by 
When children learn they’ve disappointed us in some way, they get the message. Even if they pretend they’re not listening, they are often internalizing negative feelings about their behavior. This can cause them to struggle with their self-image. The following is a personal story about that struggle.
Growing up I was a huge comic book fan. I had an almost complete collection of Marvel comics, with iconic characters like Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, the Mighty Thor, and Captain America. Nowadays they make movies with these characters that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but in the 1960s there were just the comic books and the creative stories within them. My favorite character was Spider-Man. More specifically, it was the issues of Spider-Man that were written and drawn by the original creators, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.
These days, most people know the name of Stan Lee from his long-time association with Marvel Comics, co-creating some of the most popular characters in comic book history. Up until his passing in 2018 at the age of 95, he famously had cameo appearances in most of the Marvel movies and was well known for his writing abilities. Spider-Man’s original artist, Steve Ditko, was never as famous or recognizable. The late Mr. Ditko passed away in 2018 at the age of 90. He had continued creating comic books and comic book characters until shortly before his passing.
This amazingly creative talent never craved public recognition. Imagine being the co-creator and original artist of Spider-Man and resisting publicity to the extent that you hadn’t given a public interview since 1968! When asked why, he would say he wanted his work to speak for itself; and it did.
To my young mind, there was nothing in literature that I enjoyed more than the comic books by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Their Spider-Man felt so alive! The stories had incredible fluid artwork, wise-cracking dialogue, and all the elements necessary to capture the imagination of an adolescent.
It was this devotion to his artwork and creativity that kept me purchasing his work for the next 50 years of my life. After Steve Ditko left Spider-Man in the mid-1960s, I continued to follow his work. I followed him from publisher to publisher, enjoying his new comic book stories. My adolescent self was happy to read anything he was involved in creating.
At some point, I came across a new character he created called Mr. A. Mr. A was a comic book character like none ever presented before in the comic book medium. Sharing concepts with the writings of Ayn Rand, Mr. A was a no-nonsense crime-fighter who believed people’s actions were either purely “good” or purely “evil.” There was no grey in Mr. A’s world. There were no excuses. When you did wrong, you did wrong, and it made you irredeemable until you were properly punished.
One of the first Mr. A stories I read featured a criminal, who after being defeated by Mr. A, was left to die. The character was suspended high in the air, helpless and about to fall to his death. The person was begging for his life and Mr. A explained that he had no intention of saving him. The person was a killer and did not deserve his sympathy or help. Then, in the last panel of the story, after the person had begged to be saved, he fell to his death. This harsh reality never happened in a Spider-Man comic book.
Hearing this black and white view of ethics and morality was very difficult for me. I was a 15-year-old boy who definitely did not do everything “right.” I had on occasion done things I knew were wrong; behaviors I was not proud of; and reading about this moralistic character with such rigid views resulted in a significant amount of guilt and shame. While the things I felt guilty about may not have been serious offenses, they still caused me a lot of painful reflection and resulted in damage to my self-esteem. There were certainly times I imagined that if I were in trouble, Mr. A might be unwilling to save me and possibly allow me to fall to my death.
The point of this story is to illustrate that when we communicate with children, we need to remember that our words have power. Children and adolescents can be very sensitive to criticism and react strongly to it. While we do need to help them develop their ethics and morals, if there are ways to do this without shaming them, or imparting excessive guilt, it’s important we do that. In this way, we can avoid inadvertently damaging their self-esteem and self-image. By just helping them learn to correct the behavior, we will be getting our message across without the potential damage.
Children know when we are disappointed. The more we can just help the child learn the lessons we wish to impart, the more we can raise happier, more successful children – children who don’t struggle with whether or not they are worthy of Mr. A saving them if they were in trouble.
