THE MYTH OF THE SPOILED CHILD: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom about Children and Parenting (Da Capo Press) - It was inspired by a curious fact that Id noticed some time ago: Even people with relatively liberal views on political issues suddenly sound like Fox News hosts when the conversation turns to what kids are like or how they should be raised. Parents are accused of being permissive (on the one hand) and overprotective (on the other), unwilling to set limits and afraid to let their kids fail. Helicopter parenting is thought to be both widespread and terribly destructive. Young people, meanwhile, are routinely described as entitled and narcissistic, among other unflattering adjectives. Theyre said to suffer from inflated self-esteem and to receive trophies, praise, and As too easily. Somehow these deeply conservative beliefs have congealed into the conventional wisdom in our culture, a development reflected in the numbing uniformity of articles in the popular press about the benefits of failure, the scourge of overparenting, and, particularly among educators, an uncritical acceptance of claims that children need to be trained to show more self-discipline and grit. What I try to do in this book is challenge the erroneous factual assumptions on which such claims are based and expose the troubling ideology that underlies them. - Alfie Kohn
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 07:46:53 +0000
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