Posted by William Sheridan on April 22, 2008, 3:11 pm, in reply to "Are We Destroying Childhood?"
99.241.114.62
Parental Paranoia
Carl Honoré
UNDER PRESSURE
Alfred A. Knopf Canada, Toronto, 2008. Reviewed by William Sheridan
The pernicious effects of hyper-parenting may not be recognized by either parents or children who have not experienced it. And even those who have experienced such problems may not want to acknowledge them. As a parent, Carl Honoré had his consciousness raised on this issue by his own son who, in response to an offer of “help” replied “Why do grown-ups have to take over everything?” As an investigative journalist, Honoré decided to research this situation, and after interviews on four continents he concluded that it is a world-wide phenomenon.
As he sees it, the problem is with the adults rather than the children. So he organizes the results of his study into chapters that trace the succession of hyper-parenting activities from before birth to adulthood and beyond. Over-protecting, over-stimulating, and over-scheduling usually lead to overly-dependent children who, even in adulthood need their parents to fend for them. He deals with, amongst other things, preschool procedures, toys, technology, schools, homework, extracurricular activities, sports, and consumerism. In each case “too much of a good thing” leaves parents and children both anxious and exhausted.
The sad part about all of these efforts is that most of them do not achieve the results hoped for. Neither enriched experiences nor expanded activities produce the exemplary results that parents are striving to promote. The children are not smarter, healthier, or happier – and that can lead to disappointment on the part of the parents and resentment on the part of the children. All of this concern and effort, the expenditure of so much time and money, and yet the demonstrable results are minimal, and the emotional after-affects can be devastating.
What Honoré recommends is that parents “back-off” and give their children “enough space” to enjoy childhood. As a person who was fortunate enough to have escaped such hyper-parenting in my own family, I can readily attest to the fact that a relaxed childhood is much to be preferred to a compulsively supervised one. Furthermore, the individuals who experience hyper-parenting usually aren’t noticeably brighter, kinder, more successful, or better adjusted adults. Putting kids under hyper-parenting pressure doesn’t really produce either over-achievers or better people. Reading UNDER PRESSURE can be therapeutic for anyone practicing hyper-parenting and reassuring for anyone not!
| 160 |
|
Message Thread:
|
