I hope your book starts a national converstation too! I fully agree with all of your points. Childhood lessons are best learned through experience. Now kids are expected to simply follow a pre-written manual on how to grow.

You are absolutely right. Full day preschool & kindergarten, little to no recess, structured play time (and if you're in new york city add gifted & talented hysteria). Where did childhood go?

Admittedly, I didn't read the article that Hara references nor have I read her book. However, is there tangible proof that such a phenomena exists? Or is this all just anecdotal musings?

I would find it hard to believe that those from working class and middle class families even have the TIME to hover over their kids, let alone live their lives for them!

I teach at a local junior college and university. I really connect with your statements about their inability to deal with uncertainty and manage anxiety. The vast majority of my students need not just expectations to be spelled out (which is appropriate), they want to already know how to complete the assignment. They come expecting to already have developed the skills they need. However, college is about stretching and growing and learning new skills. Somewhere, that has gotten lost in the shuffle.

At the same time, as a mom of a toddler I really connect with the idea of wanting to "clear the way" and allow my child to be successful. I attempt to temper this with the adage "don't do anything for him that he can do for himself." That means if he is having trouble crawling up on the couch or managing a new obstacle, I allow him to navigate while commiserating. I do not immediately "save him" from his frustration but talk him through what he is doing.

I look forward to hearing more about your book.

Totally agree.
I call the kids inability to cope with any challenges "lack of calluses". It seems to get the message through.
As a therapist i have a lot of stories to support your work.
Lydia

. . . no more dodge ball. . . no more losing, in fact. When did it become a good idea for every kid on every sports team to get a trophy just for showing up? I work with kids, and I can say that, not only do the kids not like the idea of being rewarded for accomplishing nothing, their "trophies" don't mean anything to them. What happened to the idea of the reward for hard work, the reward for a good, hard job well done?

This hits a lot of our young people in their early twenties, when they've gotten as far as their cruisy ways will take them. That's when they show up in therapy -- to talk about how they've made it this far and they don't know what they want, don't know what they want to be, and they certainly don't know how to work for it.

congrats, Hara. I've slready directed a dozen parents and their kids to the excerpt from your book in this month's magazine. It has prompted much useful discussion. Where can I buy a copy or 3?
Larry W

Thanks for your observations! I'm a New England therapist and a parent of two grown, confident, active, independent young men. We are not helicopter parents. We find our two boys are very open with us and close, though they live far away, and are completely responsible for their own lives. We feel that helicopter parents are projecting their own sense of inadequacy and overwhelm about the post-modern world onto their kids, and by being so anxious, giving their kids the message that they think the kid is not competent. We were always taught that a parent's job is to teach their kids that they are (and how to be) competent, savvy people in the world, who are responsible for their actions (or inaction), and how not to become prey to the exploitive aspects of modern life (eg consumerism, quick-buck-ism, zipless f**k-ism). When our kids approached High School graduation, we made it clear that after High School we expected them to leave New England for the wider world. With college, or without it, their choice. Of course they didn't _have to_ leave NE, but our point was symbolic of the necessity that they face their uncertainty about 'emancipation,'and deal with it in a healthy way. Are the kids you describe wimps? Or the parents? I feel like saying to the parents you describe, "grow up."

What are the point of Hara's blogs if all every single person on here does is agree with her, fawn over her and kiss up to her? Blogs are supposed to bring about VIGOROUS DEBATE, people!

They're definitely not supposed to be about promoting your own practice either!

Everyone on here needs to take their therapist cap off and think their answers through a little more.

Excellent topic Hara! I have felt as passionately as you do about this topic for years! Congrats on your book! I'm a certified Love and Logic Parent trainer and parenting coach (and therapist as well). This program has for years addressed the very issues that you bring up! In teaching and coaching parents from the Love and Logic approach, parents are given skills to parent their kids to assist them in developing a strong sense of responsibility, cognitive thinking skills, mastery and coping skills, all while enhancing a healthy attachment by not doing the things you mentioned that are causing wimps who cannot cope with the frustrations of life!
Jody Lynch, LCSW

It makes a good reading... Here are my thoughts:

Many parents including me in the middle class struggle tend to compensate for what we did not get when we were children driving to a state of over protection. When the over protection is not appreciated by your own children in the same terms of your longing for such over protection by you from your parents, you tend feel a loss, a state of helplessness and despair.

After talking to many a parents, I am more inclined to believe that:

a) A little less giving will atleast generate a desire in your children of competitive spirit, a will to achieve and motivate them.

b) A little more than essential will destroy their spirit.

I am reminded of the rat experiment (I studied long time ago) that experimental psychologists did once: giving too much food, made the rat lazy, sit at one place and not active. Now realize, the experimental psychologists were quite on the money, and thats why we call this fight for existence, A RAT RACE.

I am always in search of a pill..however magic it may be... to cure the attitude problems of haves than havenots

Vasu Chikkatur Murthy

I must admit I haven't read your book, although it does sound like interesting reading, and I feel your points you make are valid. However unless you really, as you state, go into depth about problems I believe to be deeply rooted in our society then your book, although I'm sure is enteraining enough, will be to no avail.

I believe that 'parent bashing' is not the solution, and agree that schools should be more distant in the reering of our nations children. The main problem I believe to be causing this 'Nation of Wimps' is infact our government, driven by econmic factors it has sacrificed our children for a 'healthy economy'. Leading the jobs of the parents to be rendered harder to do. My point is based upon kindergardens and schools that are now allowing parents to leave their children in the hands of others for nearly the entire span of their childhood. Thus meaning that children are even more under the cosh of our own government teaching them to be compliant and not allowing any freedom for natural growth. This artificial reering of children is bound to have adverse effects on the psychological ability to cope with difficult situation exsaserbated by the fact that their parents have seemed to have lost the ability to give effective help to their children due to their 'handing over' of their roles to the schools and others.

I totally disagree with the wimp argument. Parents need to be watchdogs like never before. Where are you? I live in rural Texas and practice in rural Texas, predators abound and so does drug use, neglected children, and apathy. What are we talking about in percentages. Perhaps some of you have well heeled clients. I have both upper and low income. You know what? The "wimps" aren't parenting high achieving, well adjusted kids. The wimps are TV watching, beer drinking, meth taking parents whose children would love to be involved, but dad is drunk and doesn't work because he got the hell beat out of him when he was drunk. They were molested by mom's drug buddies. What are you thinking? Do you have a practice that caters to narcissists? Then maybe that's true. But in normal communities there are many worse situations. My husband was raised in a small Iowa community of 600 folks. The town revolved around the community. All of the children were as involved as any child is today...nights at the ballpark, band concerts, football, basketball...whatever.
Since I spend countless hours trying to get families to honor their children, care if they pass a class, as do my colleagues...this subject seems far too afield to reality.

I listened to you on KCBS this morning and you were asked why it is that parents are most acutely feeling more anxiety/insecurity that they are transferring to their kids...I think you ducked to obvious! Eight years (almost) of the Bush administration raising the terror alert at the drop of a hat, talking constantly about the threat of terrorists, 911 again at any moment, etc. They, are far as I'm concerned, share a bulk of responsibility for super-sizing the American FEAR! (Not to mention disgracing our country.)

Thanks for listening.

To Robert Bishoff
Hummmm, so the Bush administration didn't just respond to a terror attack by Islamofacists, they also created the ensuing fear? If our children are going to become fearful from dealing with the real world, then heaven help us 60's kids who practiced "drop" drills for earthquakes and were marched silently into the basements into the heater pits where we were told that we should cover our heads and eyes but keep our mouths wide open to help equalize the pressure from the nuclear blast that was coming to Los Angeles. Our grandparents stockpiled food supplies in their mountain cabin so we could go there to survive. Most of us grew to be fully functional people who could respond to real danger in a calm way while sorting out presumed from eminent threat within typical families. If you want to address fear, I think the pharmaceutical companies attacking the psyches of the American people with invented diseases and then marketing the target drugs to fearful, proactive people would be worth taking a look at.

Dear Hara and others:

It's interesting to read all the responses and discover that even therapists can disagree vehemently on this subject. No question that I've seen both overly vigilant and completely disengaged parents. As a marriage and family therapist I'm always looking at executive function in the household, and how parents use their authority. Some children are incredibly sensitive, and are crushed by their parents' expectations, resorting to drugs, lying, and other avoidance behaviors. Other kids don't give a rip about what their parents are asking them to do. There is no perfect formula, and I think that's where we come in. The latest edge of teen - parent challenges revolves around the use of electronic devices. When the APA is considering the designation "Video Game Addiction" to be added to the DSM in future editions, you know that we have a problem on our hands. Watch a 14 year-old respond to being told that he will have to go cold turkey from using the internet to play World of Warcraft. He will likely behave just like an addict trying to quit Meth. Again, it's a delicate and tenuous balance that needs to be struck between parents and their children. We help them walk that fine line towards health and serenity.

check out a talk on cd by therapist Stephen Bezruchka (available through KPFA
radio at KPFA.org) called "Is America Driving You Crazy?" BRILLIANT!

I don't feel so bad about making my kids walk to school, even in bad weather. They told me they hated it when they were growing up, but now they appreciate my parenting. They told me they were lucky that their father and I were strict.

I have to agree that I see this as a supervisor of twentysomething social workers, too. The self-esteem generation has been over-acknowledged for "just showing up." The real life experience of this is that in their annual evaluations, I've been regulary challenged for giving anything less than "superior" ratings (which I would only give to someone who truly stood above and beyond his/her peers). This has also come in the form of letters and follow up meetings in order to explain myself to my supervisees (all who have been in the field less than 3 years). Additionally, when given 10-15% raises (in a world of 3-5% raises), I've received lackluster responses of "I think I should have gotten more." I have never experienced these attitudes with supervisees older than 40 (instead, asking "what can I do to improve my evaluation next year?" or "thank you for a thoughtful evaluation"). The entitlement attitude of being given everything for nothing coupled with the expectation to be acknowledged as nothing less than superior is irritating in the moment and worrisome for the future.

I heard Ms Marano on the john and ken show podcast from last saturday, when Ms Marano noted that she talked with college students who did not attempt to debate issues with professors. One student said 'We didn't get where we are by making waves'. It seemed that she attributed this reluctance to express themselves to some part of the way they were raised.

However, I think the true interpretation of this behavior is something very pragmatic on the parts of the students. Despite much lip service about openness and free speech and discussions, the actual intellectual atmosphere in the universities is really a religion of narrow-mindedness and political correctness.

I can't write a book about this here, but I will give one very good example. That is the castigation of the Harvard president Lawrence Summers merely for suggesting that the reason men outperformed women in mathematics might be the result of some type of biological difference between the sexes. That is actually typical of the radical atmosphere in academe.

The PC university atmosphere is a cultural trend I follow somewhat closely. I hear about it from students and others all the time, and I remember my own experience many years ago. Dissent simply isn't tolerated. The views of the university elites simply clash with the values and common sense ideas of the students.

This is because the universities' social sciences departments are run by radicals, and the faculty don't dare dissent from the prevailing wisdom. And there is nothing the students can do about this. In fact they are wise to play dumb in today's pc world. And their behavior in this instance is no different from what almost all intelligent individuals do in circumstances where a hostile atmosphere prevails.