Fred Rogers is the only person I've never met who'd I trust to babysit my kids. I too grew-up in the neighborhood and I think it's important not to lose the other part of Mr. Rogers' message.
Yes, Rogers believed in rewarding sincere effort without success, but he also believed in making the best effort we can make and taking pride in making that effort. He wasn't an advocate for laziness nor reticence. He urged kids to try different things even if they didn't know how to do them perfectly at first. He wanted kids to be enthusiastic, not fearful, of new situations and activities. I think he acted as foil for so many parents who push their kids to do things and then berate the kids for failure when they don't learn to do those things well right off the bat. Mr. Rogers said, "If you try, try your best. If you still fail, then keep trying. Even if you're not the best at something, take pride in accomplishing what you have done." He was not a Friday Night Lights parent.
Yes, Rogers believed we are all special. We are. None of us has the perfect combination of talents and knowledge to match any other person in this world. Rogers told us that Suzie might be great at singing and we might not be, and if we aren't even if we try hard, we have other talents that Suzie might not have. He believed it's very important that we not devalue ourselves when we compare our own suite of talents to those of someone else. We might not be the fastest runner, but we might be the better tennis player. We might not have clothes as fancy as Heather, but we might have more style.
It's very easy for kids to be discouraged when they see their friends excel at things they don't. Rogers simply encouraged us to find our own niche and take pride in the talents we do have. Self esteem is important in the world both as a kid and as an adult. It's particularly important to instill this in young kids because adolescence is so often a time of uncertainty, insecurity, raging hormones, anxieties, and peer pressure. If an adolescent doesn't believe in his or her own worth, only judging themselves by how their friends see them, then you're raising a child to be an insecure adult. Giving a kid self-confidence can help him or her get through the storms of adolescence with a minimum of problems.
Young kids are not adults. The message that Rogers and others gives to kids seems simplistic and unrealistic to us as adults, but that's OK. They will come to learn the realities of the adult world but they need to learn that when the time is right and the time is NOT right for kids who are of the age of Rogers' audience. At that stage in life, kids need to have their self-esteem built so that when the time does arrive, they will be better able to handle the realities of the adult world with their confidence intact.