Are Children Today Being Raised "Too Safe to Succeed"?

"The worst of all public dangers is the committee of public safety."--C.S. Lewis

This past month I read The Coddling of the American Mind, an insightful book that helped me understand some of the controversial events taking place on campuses the past few years.  The book is by a first amendment expert (Greg Lukianoff) and a social psychologist (Jonathan Haidt), which I found to be an interesting combination.

The book is awash with disturbing anecdotes that show how screwed up things have become as the Z-generation enters into the college experience. One of the problems, which they go to great lengths to demonstrate, is that our efforts to raise children in a "safe" world has had the unintended consequence of making them fragile.

The authors have been fairly prolific writers, with articles in high profile magazines such as The Atlantic. The following anecdote is from an article in Reason titled The Fragile Generation, by Haigt and Lenore Skenazy. After citing two or three examples of society being overprotective they write:

And then there was the query that ran in Parents magazine a few years back: "Your child's old enough to stay home briefly, and often does. But is it okay to leave her and her playmate home while you dash to the dry cleaner?" Absolutely not, the magazine averred: "Take the kids with you, or save your errand for another time." After all, "you want to make sure that no one's feelings get too hurt if there's a squabble."

As you read that, you were probably as stunned as I to see the editors' rationale for not leaving the kids home. You don't want anyone's feelings hurt if there is a squabble.

Really? The subtitle of the article is "Bad policy and paranoid parenting are making kids too safe to succeed."

Whatever happened to the stories we were told about how baby birds had to break out of their shells on their own, or they wouldn't thrive. That illustration from nature was applied to life. You may want to help but then the baby birds will fail to learn something important that evidently is imprinted in their little brains.

When I saw the C. S. Lewis quote about "the committee of public safety" it dawned on me that our current over-protective parenting styles and "safety culture" did not suddenly spring up. It's had a much longer evolution than I'd realized.

Yes, it's good to have safe streets where you won't get mugged or shot, but safety from getting into an argument while playing, lest feelings be ruffled? If your kid sprains an ankle playing football in the front yard, should the parents worry about being carted off to jail for negligence?

When I was growing up we would have annual family reunions in which dozens of cousins would play unsupervised for 12 hours a day while the parents played cards or caught up on family stories. We played kick the can, spud and other games, and one year even created a "haunted house" in my aunt's basement.

When my parents went out and my brothers and I were left home alone we often played a game we'd created called Boston Strangler. The game didn't produce nightmares, nor did it cause any of us psychological damage. Sometimes my younger brothers couldn't wait for mom and dad to go out so we could play again.

My aim here is to raise questions and hopefully create an interest in learning more about what has been happening in our current period in history. You can follow these links to learn more.

Related Links
The Fragile Generation
The Three Great Untruths that Are Harming Young Americans
TheCoddling.com

Parenting 101: Insights on Vitamin C and Vitamin E from Dr. Ron Newman

Dennis the Menace at the Newseum.

One of the recurring themes in my brother's work as a psychologist is the concept of polarity management. There seem to be countless applications, in business and in life, to the concept of polarities. This weekend we we talked about parenting, Vitamin C and Vitamin E.

Ron (Ph.D., Temple U.) explained that raising children is not an exact science, but in three decades of counseling he's observed that many conflicts emerge because of a lack of balance with regard to Vitamin C and Vitamin E.

Vitamin C is the Caring function of a relationship. It's easy to illustrate this in the parent-child relationship, though it has application to all relationships including politics. Vitamin C is one end of a polarity.

In addition to being cared for, loved and nurtured, however, children also need rules and regulations. Vitamin E is the Executive function of parenting, which means you are setting rules and regulations, and consequences for violating those rules and regulations. It is also a necessary part of relationships.

In a family, with children, a fundamental issue (and responsibility of parents) revolves around these questions: how do you teach children to grow up and become responsible adults and take responsibility for their decisions? How do you raise a child to be confident and free to explore the world and the use of his or her gifts?

And how do parents correct their children when their children violate rules by staying up all night or when their kids say disrespectful things to their parents or other people? This is a Vitamin E function.

When a parent corrects in anger in a hostile way, it makes the child feel that the parent cares more about the rules than the child. If parents deal with things in anger they are neglecting the Vitamin C.

If parents compromise on E and allow the child to do whatever it wants, then they and the child are in peril because essentially the parent is enabling the child to make the rules, strengthening his or her selfishness and self-centeredness. The child's sense of connection in a balanced way gets compromised.

In some of the worst-case scenarios you have the polarization of parents along these lines. The Vitamin C parent's over-concern with connection undermines the Vitamin E parent's authority. Conflicts ensue and children can take advantage of the situation to get what they want. We've all seen this where children play one parent against the other.

In a healthy home, the child internalizes the Vitamin E and they learn, as they mature, to negotiate rules. In an unhealthy home the child simply rejects Vitamin E. She might reject it because the parents are inconsistent enforcing the rules.

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Ron went on to use this concept to explain how not understanding Vitamin E and Vitamin C causes confusion for some people in their ideas about God.

God is love, he stated. God communicates that love in what we see as falling into these two categories. God cared enough to come live in our broken world and die on a cross for us. John, as an author, communicated God's care for us in a multitude of ways. You see it in God's reaching out to mankind. Forgiveness is a Vitamin C function. Listening is a Vitamin C function. God wants us to communicate with Him. God's mercy is a Vitamin C function.

But the Vitamin E is communicated in God's having given us the Law, the ten commandments. The Law of God is for our benefit, summed up in the commandment to love one another. The two (the commandments and love) are not mutually exclusive. Thou shall not kill, thou shall not steal, etc. are designed to help us live in relationships of love.

"Now if we strive for perfection in following the law," he said, "if we overdo the emphasis on keeping law we end up with legalism, perfectionism, hypocrisy, judgmentalism of others, Pharisseeism... and we forget our connection to others. We compromise our Vitamin C."

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Additional applications to politics and business can be drawn, but I have a plane to catch and you can make your own applications from here. This is simply a tool to help bring understanding.

As you face the week ahead think about your own vitamin balance. And if you are a publisher, Ron's got a book's worth of insights on this topic of polarities.

Have a great week.