-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
How to pronounce Hara Estroff Marano: http://anationofwimps.com/
Hara Estroff Marano discusses A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting.
What makes you think that we're raising a nation of wimps?
I didn't set out to write a book of that title. In 2002, I discovered that
record numbers of college students were experiencing serious psychological
disorders. Major depression. Panic attacks. Self-mutilation. Eating disorders.
Substance use and abuse. I spoke to hundreds of campus counseling center
directors and the people manning the front lines in them. The article I wrote,
Crisis on the Campus, made news. In 2004, I found that things had only gotten
worse. All along, I had been asking why. The folks at the front lines find that
today's students lack the most basic coping skills, because growing up they were
overprotected, never allowed to mess up or to experience discomfort, never
encouraged to take risks. Coping skills come from figuring out ways to deal with
uncertainty and life's lumps and bumps. When the lumps and bumps are smoothed
out for you, you have no opportunity to learn how to cope. Then, when you leave
the protective cocoon of home for college, you feel overwhelmed by the slightest
difficulty. So my book evolved from the evidence that these kids are already
psychologically very fragile.
Why do parents overprotect their kids?
Parents know that the world has changed from the time they were kids. They're
worried about their kids' success in the fast and fluid new economy and global
marketplace. They want their kids better prepared than they felt they were for
this new world. They plan out their kids' lives and push for a brand-name
education because they think it's going to give their kids the best shot at
success. They're terrified that any little deviation from the straight and
narrow path of academic achievement or athletic success might ruin their
children's chances of getting into a good college. So they do everything in
their power to help their kids' succeed.
Isn't this just a problem of rich kids wanting to get into Ivy League
colleges?
Not at all. It's happening almost everywhere in America among the middle class
and upper middle class, among those people who understand that a four-year
college education is now the minimum requirement for middle class status.
Ironically, it's worse among the richest segment than among the ordinary middle
class, who have always hoped for their kids to better their status through
education. Time was, the rich were often neglectful of their kids and just
prayed they didn't wrap themselves around a tree in an alcoholic haze before
they inherited the company. But in the very dynamic and fluid world we all now
inhabit, the rich realize they have the most to lose, and they are most vigilant
about positioning their kids for success.
What kinds of things do parents do?
The run homework over to school if their kid leaves it at home. They call the
teacher or the professor if their kid gets less than an A. They don't tell the
child to study harder; they ask the school to change the grade. They get their
kids tested and seek "accommodations" so they can take all their tests untimed,
especially that big one at the end of the rainbow, the SATs. They hire $600 an
hour tutors. They literally and figuratively wrap their kids in bubble wrap.
True Story #1. A couple flew out to Los Angeles from Nebraska with their
toddler. On their way from the airport to the hotel, they asked their cab driver
to stop off at the nearest Home Depot. There they ran in and came out with a
roll of…yes, bubble wrap. They checked into their hotel and proceeded to line
the entire room with bubble wrap. Aside from the absurdity of it, and hotel
rooms are not very dangerous places, do you know what message that delivers to a
kid? The world is a dangerous place and you're too fragile to deal with it.
Are you saying the world is not a dangerous place?
It's not anywhere near as dangerous as parental anxieties have made it out to
be. Many of the things parents are worried about are not the things parents need
to be concerned about. Just take one example. If you ask parents why they don't
let their kids go out and play, they'll look at you in horror and say it's
because of all the sexual predators out there. You know all the laws we've
enacted about registering sexual offenders. I won't go into the unenforceability
of most of them. But in fact, even before the hysteria was escalating, sexual
crimes against children were dropping dramatically; we're talking in the last
two decades. A child is much more at risk of sexual victimization from a member
of the family, especially a stepparent, than a stranger. Another example, why do
parents suddenly feel the need to use padded cotton liners before parking their
kids' butts in the seat of a shopping cart? Shopping carts are just not great
vectors of disease. But parents today see danger everywhere outside the home.
It's their own anxiety speaking.
Why is overprotection bad? What are the effects?
Let's take the example of the shopping carts. The world we inhabit is full of
germs. On shopping carts. On doorknobs. On telephones. This isn't generally
cause for alarm. You actually need exposure to a wide array of them because they
keep the immune system stimulated and it has a memory for that particular kind
of bug. So you're protected when you face a much greater exposure. But if you're
overprotected with liners and sanitizing gels, you're not exposed to the few
germs that might be on a shopping cart, and so you're made more susceptible to
every serious bug that crosses your path. Without behavioral coping skills,
every little challenge becomes insurmountable and you get depressed or you panic
or you don't even have words to express your inner alarm so you cut yourself.
And you become risk-averse, because you can't handle uncertainty. Or difficulty.
How is that those who mean only the best bring for their kids wind up
bringing out the worst in them?
It's always been terribly hard for a parent to watch a child struggle with
something. When you throw into the mix parental anxiety for the success of their
children, parents wind up taking over tasks or doing things for their kids
because they want their kids to achieve and to be happy. But that grossly
misunderstands happiness. You don't become happy by the absence of difficulty.
The greatest satisfaction come from setting a challenging goal, being engaged in
pursuing it, not being sure you can reach it, and summoning up all your
resources to stretch towards it. You're never so happy as in that last final
sprint towards a challenging goal, when you can almost taste it but still have
to reach a bit more for it. That's how the brain creates positive states of mind
and a sense of satisfaction that has far more staying power than buying the
latest gizmo.
The achievement pressures put on kids by schools and parents is leaving them
with fewer opportunities for play. Why is that so bad?
Because play looks like a waste of time, but it does great things for the
development of the nervous system. It stimulates brain development in the areas
of the brain where we eventually gain self-control. It plays a trick on us…play
is behavior that's not goal-directed but that gives us the ability to become
goal-directed. We live in a fast and fluid worked with much uncertainty. Who
knows what the world is going to be like 10 years from now? Play creates
behavioral flexibility, gives us the ability to adapt. It makes us
psychologically nimble. It is the perfect preparation for a world that is
fast-moving and uncertain. Play is the future with sneakers on.
Why are you worried about a nation of wimps?
These kids will be the next generation of adults and as the educated ones, our
leaders will be drawn from them. If you have a whole generation that has grown
up not having to make decisions for themselves, you have a generation that has
no experience with the basic requirements of democracy. How do they stand on
their own two feet? The amazing thing is how compliant these kids are, in the
classroom, with their parents. They talk to their parents constantly by
cellphone. They are not problem-solvers and risk-takers, so how will they
sustain the economy in the years ahead, when we will need innovation even more
than we do now? To be an innovator you have to not only know how to solve
problems but you have to have perseverance and persistence. These are all the
traits that are being bred out of this generation.
Is there anything parents can do?
Well, they can begin by backing off and keeping their anxieties to themselves.
They need to understand that kids are naturally equipped with curiosity and want
to do well; they don't have to push them an hover over them to cram it all in.
They can let their kids play. They can pay some attention to their own adult
relationships and they can nurture their marriage, which is the best way to
protect kids. They can learn how to praise kids: not tell them how brilliant
they are but ask them what made them think about something the way they do. And
they can learn how to criticize kids: not tell them that second best is good
enough but ask them whether they're satisfied with their own performance and
what they think they need to do as well as they want. That way kids get the keys
to their own motivation and their own mental health.
Unless otherwise stated, this interview was conducted at the time the book was first published, and is reproduced with permission of the publisher. This interview may not be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the copyright holder.
Dr. Mel Levine was formerly a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of North Carolina Medical School in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Dr. Levine is also the co-founder of All Kinds of Minds, a non-profit Institute for the ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
A Nation of Wimps
Try:
A Mind At A Time
by Dr. Mel Levine
Gabor Maté, M.D., is the bestselling author of When the Body Says No and Scattered Minds, In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, and co-author of Hold On To Your Kids with Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D. ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
A Nation of Wimps
Try:
Hold On To Your Kids
by Gabor Maté
We recommend 5 similar authors
 (1).gif)
Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
