It’s popular today to point out that Gen Ys as children often received trophies for simple participation and extensive praise for just about any idea. Detractors criticize Y’s (individuals born between 1980 and 2000) as products of a misguided movement in parenting and education designed to buffer children from the negative effects of competition and build self-esteem – an approach, they argue, that has filled them with false self-confidence. Some claim that self-esteem without achievement to back it up has produced an unmotivated and self-aggrandizing generation. Ouch!