The Parents We Mean To Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children's Moral and Emotional Development

I use the term "kids" when referring to those from the first grade through high school. For the first time in our known human history, or what we were taught about our history, I am amazed at how well the kids today can even survive in this complicated high-tech world they have been thrust into. I'm referring to the intense pressure from parents, from other kids and from the entertainment media which tells, or implies, that unless the kids are beautiful, talented and winners, they are losers--nobodies in other words. This instills feelings (illusions) of inferiority in the kids. Our western society implies that those in sports and entertainment should be idols--Dennis Rodman, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, etc. To compensate for the illusion of being a nobody, the kids may join a gang of like-minded kids just to be part of a "family" who cares about them, and accepts them as they are.Kids are expected to live up to the demands of the adults in their environment. Why? If the kids fail to live up to these unreasonable expectations, it destroys their sense of self-worth. Weisbourd quotes a parent, "What I hear from teachers is that lots of parents want their kids to be perfect, and they can't bear hearing about any problem or weakness". Hence, this instills in the kids the fear of shame and fear of failure. Weissbourd quotes the psychiatrist James Gilligan concerning prison inmates, "I have yet to see a serious act of violence that was not provoked by the experience of feeling shamed and humiliated". The kids then feel that they are stupid. But young children cannot be stupid. Only the adults can become stupid. "We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid".--Benjamin Franklin. I'm sure that most of us can relate to these feelings when we were kids.In light of this, what is the reaction from the kids? Rebelliousness, drug abuse, skipping school? Yet if parents inflate the child's ego, that will also set the kids up for shame. The scholar Robert Karen says, "We may indirectly set our children up for shame if we don't teach them manners, or curb their obnoxious traits...When they give children's impulses too much rein or when they give children too much power to make choices they are not prepared to make, they can set children up for shame as well".The most common question over the many past generations is what is the deal with teens, and their irresponsible impulses? Page 30, "Over the last few decades, many adults have become acutely aware that adolescence is a distinct developmental stage, influenced in part by a new wave of scientific evidence indicating that the basic circuitry of the teen brain makes them a different animal". It is the way the brain develops from the teen years to the mid 20's. Teen rebellion is not due to lack of morality or disobedience to "authority", but due to a higher sense of morality. Teens rebel against the hypocrisy of adults, the absence of social justice.Should the parent shower the child with praise? Too much praise can have the same effects as the feelings of shame. An over-praised child must live up to what he perceives as the parent's expectations--be perfect at everything. You may want to read "Mindset" by Carol Dweck, and her thoughts of praise. Regarding empathy, "Children are born with certain strong reactions to distress in others". A child naturally has feelings for the pains of others, and also feels, or tries to feel, another's pain. But only after adult training and brain-washing do the kids become indifferent to others, and learn to hate or distrust those who don't look like they do, or believe as they were taught.Sports are alleged to built character and teamwork. Could be. I never participated in school sports due to an injury when I was 11 years old. Hence, I feel unqualified to comment on sports. But are high school sports for the benefit of the kids, or are they ego trips for the adults considering that many parents act like idiots at their kids' games? "The only lesson I've seen children draw from sporting events is that the referee is an idiot, and members of the other team are some lower form of life.. There are large risks when parents and coaches are too emotionally wrapped up in children's sports--when we depend on children's sports work out our own conflicts or for a mood boost".There is much more to this book than I've written above. I recommend this book and also "Building Resilience in Children and Teens" by Kenneth Ginsburg.

The book gave me enough food for thought on the topic of morality and children. I've just become a father and I also happen to see many kids from various ages in my extended family. My thoughts and feelings after observing the younger ones and teens, how they react to their peers, elders and to the world in general is neither very optimistic nor really pessimistic but I must confess that I generally tend to be a little pessimist. Sometimes I feel like I will not have much say when my son will be a teenager, all that peer pressure and other parameters that will be more or less out of my control. But on the other hand, I also observe the parents and see how their behavioral patterns affect the children, e.g. their attitude towards sports activities, how they value sports and what kind of ethical standards they adhere to.Richard Weissbourd draws a pretty broad and sincere picture about the current situation of parenting in USA, as well as major problems and attitudes towards children. Some parts of the book may run the risk of sounding a little alien to the people outside of USA, but in this highly-connected world of ours I don't think we can deny the influence of culture from the other side of Atlantic. One of the striking points of the book is how Weissbourd describes the changes of attitude in immigrant children: in the beginning they are very nice, polite, hard-working and respectful (according to their teachers) but after a few years of interacting with their peers in USA they undergo a dramatic change of attitude towards their teachers, school life, and moral values; which is generally perceived as very negative by the very same teachers.One of the main themes of the book, and maybe the most important lesson of all, is that actually trying to be 'friends' with your children does not work the way you expect. There are many examples from real world cases in which children lose their strongest moral compass, their parents because, well, parents became more like friends than parents. Another important point is the attitude of parents towards success, morality and the tension between these two when there are situations where those notions seem to contradict each other. There are fabulous examples in which you see how children understand and interpret the hypocrisy of their parents when it comes to academic achievement and how it relates to "success is not everything, you should be a good and honest person in life" kind of thinking. Taking into account the overly competitive social life of USA and how it erodes the psychology of people, I'm reluctant to accuse parents but then I ask myself "to whom will the children turn to for an example, if not their parents?" There doesn't seem to be easy and simple answers.One of my favorite chapters of the book has got to do about the relationship among sports, coaching, moral values and parenting. Some parts of the chapter are real gems on the philosophy of sports. Weissbourd does not hesitate to bust the myths of coaching spread by popular Hollywood movies such as Remember the Titans, Hoosiers and others. I found it very important and valuable to reflect upon why we value sports, why we take our children to sports activities and what success means to us and our children in the context of those activities. Is having fun the most important thing that should eschew hard competition? Is winning the game, by doing whatever it takes, something to be worshiped? What would our children really lose had they not been in that sports activity? Is it really for us or for them? Should the coach be a dictator or should the parents be let to interfere all the time?I would suggest this book to parents of little children or teenagers if they have concerns about raising moral children in today's world. A world in which they'll face unprecedented amounts of cultural influence, peer pressure and competition in various settings, starting with school. The book does not give simple and ready-to-use recipes but the questions it arises by using concrete examples and the principles it discusses are worth reading and re-reading indeed.

After a lot of reading on psychology and parenthood, I find this book very enlightening and reassuring! Cases and examples are very much based on American society but, as a non-american, I could still get a lot of lessons. Not only it analyses but it also gives practical tools!

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