You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
Lori Gottlieb has a provocative piece over at the Atlantic. She's a psychotherapist who made an interesting observation about her patients: they weren't blaming everything on their parents:
Sitting on my couch were...adults in their 20s or early 30s who reported that they...suffered from depression and anxiety, had difficulty choosing or committing to a satisfying career path, struggled with relationships, and just generally felt a sense of emptiness or lack of purpose—yet they had little to quibble with about Mom or Dad.
Because, as we all know, it's always about Mom and Dad. And in a weird way, Dr. Gottlieb discovers that it still is. Her patients...
...truly did seem to have caring and loving parents, parents who gave them the freedom to “find themselves” and the encouragement to do anything they wanted in life. Parents who had driven carpools, and helped with homework each night, and intervened when there was a bully at school or a birthday invitation not received, and had gotten them tutors when they struggled in math, and music lessons when they expressed an interest in guitar (but let them quit when they lost that interest), and talked through their feelings when they broke the rules, instead of punishing them (“logical consequences” always stood in for punishment). In short, these were parents who had always been “attuned,” as we therapists like to say, and had made sure to guide my patients through any and all trials and tribulations of childhood. As an overwhelmed parent myself, I’d sit in session and secretly wonder how these fabulous parents had done it all.
Until, one day, another question occurred to me: Was it possible these parents had done too much?
We smother kids with too many choices -- "Do you want the turkey wrap or the grilled cheese??" -- and we "support" them and bolster their "self-esteem" but what we're really doing is robbing them of the skills to cope with setbacks and to muscle through disappointments.
The message we send kids with all the choices we give them is that they are entitled to a perfect life—that, as Dan Kindlon, the psychologist from Harvard, puts it, “if they ever feel a twinge of non-euphoria, there should be another option.” Mogel puts it even more bluntly: what parents are creating with all this choice are anxious and entitled kids whom she describes as “handicapped royalty.”
That's a truly damning phrase: "handicapped royalty." But it rings true.
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Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
"Handicapped royalty" -- it sure does ring true. I have always found that the children of the rich whom I encountered tended to lack motivation. It was all too easy. They were generally bored, and they were much more inclined than most to lose themselves in drugs, sex, and rock & roll.
Those who know that if they do not make it on their own they will not make it at all are much better equipped. What we call the middle class our grandparents would have described as rich, and they tend to rear their children as if they were rich. Ambition is, to an every increasing degree, a rare commodity.
Mar '11
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
My participation medal for third grade basketball (we didn't keep score, everyone was a winner) and my kindergarten, 6th grade, and 8th grade graduation parties, along with my $20,000 sweet 16 party disagree with you, Rob.
Mar '11
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
Absolutely agree.
But having been smothered by weak parents their whole lives, isn't it possible that this generation will appreciate responsible, strong, strict parenting because of it? Having experienced failed parenting, wouldn't these kids be better motivated not to make the same mistakes with their own off-spring? Certainly this is the case for myself.
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
Oh bull. The problem here is the vagaries of psychotherapy.
Don't do enough - bad parent. Do too much - bad parent.
Children within one household can be as diverse as society itself. There's no over-arching right way to raise them. They have markedly different parenting needs based upon the hand that God dealt them.
They don't come with individual instruction books to tell you which will benefit from hands on, and which from hands off. A parent will never pinpoint the perfect answer either.
As a parent you pay attention and make the best decisions you can based upon the skills you have, but in the end your children will be who they were born to be, with you as the parent encouraging their better angels as best you can.
You know, if you have absolutely no talent for anything in life, your choices are hobo, a movie critic, a boxing analyst or a psychotherapist.
Edited on Jun 14, 2011 at 12:31pmFeb '11
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
The "self-esteem" movement may have started with some worthwhile insights, but these have long since been left behind, and the excesses of this movement are doing great harm.
A law firm practice manager in the U.K. remarked that "The apparent self-esteem and expectations of some candidates render them unemployable." She was speaking particularly of recent college graduates.
There are plenty of similar stories in this country. From the magazine Fast Company a few years ago:
Cindy Pruitt, (a recruiting manager with a national law firm), shares with disbelief a recent incident in which one of the firm's summer associates broke down in her office after being told his structure on a recent memo was "a little too loose." "They're simply stunned when they get any kind of negative feedback," Pruitt says. "I practically had to walk him off the ledge."
Edited on Jun 14, 2011 at 11:27amFeb '11
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
continuation of prev comment / from the Fast Company article:
A 22-year-old pharmaceutical employee learned that he was not getting the promotion he had been eyeing. His boss told him he needed to work on his weaknesses first. The Harvard grad has excelled at everything he had ever done, so he was crushed by the news. He told his parents about the performance review, and they were convinced there was some misunderstanding, and some way they could fix it, as they'd been able to fix everything before. His mother called the human-resources department the next day. Seventeen times. She left increasingly frustrated messages...She demanded a mediation session with her, her son, his boss, and HR--and got it. At one point, the 22-year-old reprimanded the HR rep for being "rude to my mom."
I also saw an item about a *commissioned salesman* whose parents called the employer angrily when the kid didn't get the bonus he'd been counting on--which was of course mathematically tied to actual sales results.
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
Ricochet Line of the Day!
May '10
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
Even those who are truly abused as children must learn to take responsibility for their own lives. Whoever is to blame for a person's challenges of character, that has no bearing on who the person is capable of becoming.
I take the long arch of human history as my guide and define "rich" as not having to worrying about basic necessities (food, shelter, basic healthcare, etc). The vast majority of Americans are rich. We are a wealthy nation.
Jun '10
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
The part that especially rang true as a sure fire way to create "handicapped royalty" was intervening when there was "a birthday invitation not received."
The message we send kids with all the choices we give them is that they are entitled to a perfect life—that, as Dan Kindlon, the psychologist from Harvard, puts it, “if they ever feel a twinge of non-euphoria, there should be another option.”
I know parents who send that message & it has a predictable, sad result. Their kids are emotionally fragile. They've been crippled by parental meddling and intrusion into the healthy and necessary developmental crucible called the "school of hard knocks."
I don't think having or spending money on your kids is the problem. Certainly giving your kids opoortunities and staying involved, as in helping with homework, is a good thing. (Doing it for them is not!) It's more about making them aware of how lucky they are to have advantages, whether that be your time or your money, to help them reach their goals. But at the first sign of an ungrateful kid, I'd be pulling back that support in a heartbeat.
Sep '10
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
My advice to the anxiety ridden kids on the couch:
"Get up. Write a biography or two. Play your cards right, vote present: you'll be President someday. And smoke. Smoke a lot."
Feb '11
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
Too many parents are obsessively concerned with ensuring that their kids acquire the right credentials and "skills," but ignore the importance of **metaskills**, or what used to be called "character," I'm referring here to things like the ability to snap back from failure, to stand up for oneself against prevailing opinions, to show grace under pressure, to share credit when appropriate.
Most career failures that can be observed in business and other organizations, past the very lowest levels, are matters of missing meta-skills rather than missing skills in the usual sense.
May '10
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
Two things must you know of therapists. First, it should be pronounced as one word; there is no space. Second, they always immediately try to get you to blame your parents. As a rehab habitue (there's an idea for a book; a rehab travel guide), that is the first, middle and last thing they try. And a lot of people seize on it, because it lets em off the hook.
Jun '10
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
Rob Long:
We smother kids with too many choices -- "Do you want the turkey wrap or the grilled cheese??" -- and we "support" them and bolster their "self-esteem" but what we're really doing is robbing them of the skills to cope with setbacks and to muscle through disappointments.
Too many choices, but no method or criteria by which to choose. I think parents are less to blame than the educational system here for discarding Western Civ. The core of a classic liberal arts education, through philosophy, theology, and the Great Books, wrestled with questions like: What is the purpose or end of life? What is happiness? What is virtue?
Kids and young adults today are told endlessly: follow your dream! Do what you love, do whatever makes you happy! So if I make the wrong choices, I'll be unhappy for the rest of my life? Little wonder such options produce anxiety.
Apr '11
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
Tommy De Seno: Oh bull. The problem here is the vagaries of psychotherapy.
Don't do enough - bad parent. Do too much - bad parent.
Children within one household can be as diverse as society itself. ... They don't come with individual instruction books to tell you which will benefit from hands on, and which from hands off. A parent will never pinpoint the perfect answer either.
... Jun 14 at 11:23am
Edited on Jun 14 at 12:31 pm
Seems to me your criticism makes the one-size-fits-all error you warn against in parenting. You declare the "problem" is the vagaries of psychotherapy and then try to prove your point by asserting the vagaries of individual children's characters, so a parent can do too much and do too little.
There are other possible parental errors: 1) It is possible for parents to go too far in one direction for all their children, regardless of their individual differences, and 2) The therapists are seeing the people harmed by their parents' being too protective and supportive. As you say, every child is an individual, and siblings may have thriven on the extra attention or sloughed off the excess.
Apr '11
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
A law firm practice manager in the U.K. remarked that "The apparent self-esteem and expectations of some candidates render them unemployable." She was speaking particularly of recent college graduates.
..."They're simply stunned when they get any kind of negative feedback," Pruitt says.
Hunh!! It's not just the Millenials. I'm a leading edge Baby Boomer, and I have long noticed this mentality in the office among women of my generation. (Never had to deal with their parents, though.)
Aug '10
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
And then... every once in a while, they're right. If only by accident.
There are a few people out there who benefit from being given "official permission" to realize that yes, their family is crazy, and yes, their parents' "good and normal" behavior was neither particularly good nor particularly normal.
There are even a few counselors (dunno about psycho-therapists) out there who even teach their clients not to blame their family for being crazy, but instead to find ways around the craziness -- including learning how not to perpetuate it.
As I said, a few.
And that really is a good idea for a book.
May '10
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
As I see it, the problem with modern, attuned parenting has everything to do with the culture-wide problem of pervasive moral relativism.
Parents feel obliged to support whatever choices their children make, regardless of how ill-advised or destructive they may be. Children feel entitled to their parents' support. If they don't get it, they imagine themselves abused.
Children are showered with everything they could want materially, but they are all too often deprived of the moral and spiritual goods that are more important in life.
May '10
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
Joseph, I started my post a hour ago, then had to run out for an errand. Now I see you've already contributed the same basic thought.
Feb '11
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
This is something that has always struck me about middle class individuals. I have constantly heard people you would consider to be part of the upper middle class lament that they are barely getting by and do not consider themselves rich by any measure. Yet these individuals have homes in relatively affluent areas, drive mid to higher range vehicles, go on vacations, possess nice clothing and furnishings, etc. I ask myself if that isn't upper middle class what is. These same people probably grew up solidly middle class but forget that the material possessions of their parents was not as voluminous. In essence, what was a middle class lifestyle in the 50's, 60's & 70's is now considered working class.
Re: You're Driving Your Kids Crazy
Rosie
This is something that has always struck me about middle class individuals. I have constantly heard people you would consider to be part of the upper middle class lament that they are barely getting by and do not consider themselves rich by any measure. Yet these individuals have homes in relatively affluent areas, drive mid to higher range vehicles, go on vacations, possess nice clothing and furnishings, etc. I ask myself if that isn't upper middle class what is. These same people probably grew up solidly middle class but forget that the material possessions of their parents was not as voluminous. In essence, what was a middle class lifestyle in the 50's, 60's & 70's is now considered working class.
The middle class then didn't require 2 incomes for comfort when paying the bills.
The generation before me spent about 1 year's salary on the price of a home. Look at the price of your home and your salary today.
College tuition was within a parent's salary. Now it is the parent's salary.