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Under Pressure: Rescuing Childhood from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting
by
Carl Honoré
From the bestselling author of In Praise of Slow comes a fascinating and urgent look at childhood today and how we are raising a generation of overprogrammed, overachieving, exhausted children.
For generations of children, growing up was a pretty simple business: you went to school for a few hours a day, you dabbled in hobbies and sports, and the rest of the time you playe...more
For generations of children, growing up was a pretty simple business: you went to school for a few hours a day, you dabbled in hobbies and sports, and the rest of the time you playe...more
Hardcover, 256 pages
Published
April 8th 2008
by Knopf Canada
(first published January 1st 2008)
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While very readable, this book irked in so many ways. Author is very fond of starting sentences with "Many studies show..." And then I flip to the back, and there is no cite whatsoever. The few assertions that are cited tend to be from things like Time and Newsweek. Grow some research balls, Carl. Please.
Oh, and he's also fond of the phrase, "Never before in human history." Give me a break.
That said, you can read it really fast, and if you're a parent you can feel superior to all the hyper-par...more
Oh, and he's also fond of the phrase, "Never before in human history." Give me a break.
That said, you can read it really fast, and if you're a parent you can feel superior to all the hyper-par...more
Under Pressure by Carl Honore is not a recipe for raising children in the twenty first century. Rather, it is a discussion about giving children time to become who they were meant to be, on their own. The book gives us permission to live slow. As a grandmother, I love this. The days I remember best are the ones where things simply unfolded. Carl suggests we organize less! He shares many mind bending thoughts like, "Competition can be thrilling for children and spur them on to play better; it can...more
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This book is preaching to the choir. I cannot imagine making my son do nine different extracurricular activities a week, going to a preschool that pushes learning multiplication tables rather than just playing, doing five hours of homework a night. I guess I'm lucky that both my childhood & my husband's were mainly comprised of making games up to play ourselves, and we agree that this is what we want for our kid. I'd give this four stars, but Honore uses the phrase "take it with a shake of s...more
This somewhat meandering highly anecdotal book has little new to say about the foibles of modern Western middle-class parenting. (Overscheduling! Not enough free play! Too much academic pressure! Too many electronics!) Each chapter summarizes problems that have been covered in more extensive detail in a variety of other individual books. His chapter on homework, for instance, draws from The Homework Myth and The Case Against Homework (though Honore is actually more balanced than either of these...more
Overall this is a decent book and worth reading if you have kids. However it has no prescriptions for sucess and much of it is full of anecdotes which really don't prove anything.
Similar to "A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting" which is focussed more on the college years. This book is focussed on the under 10 age range.
Similar to "A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting" which is focussed more on the college years. This book is focussed on the under 10 age range.
Really one of the best parenting books I've read, probably because 1 ) it agrees with me - LOL and 2) it's not a how-to, at least not in the specific sense.
Honore basically contends that child hood has become too rigid, that, in our quest to make our kids successful, we've stopped allowing them to just be kids - kids who are programmed, on their own, without our meddling and intervention - to discover the environement and learn at their own pace.
I am especially taken by his arguments regarding s...more
Honore basically contends that child hood has become too rigid, that, in our quest to make our kids successful, we've stopped allowing them to just be kids - kids who are programmed, on their own, without our meddling and intervention - to discover the environement and learn at their own pace.
I am especially taken by his arguments regarding s...more
Not really shedding new light on your basic free-range kid philosophy so far. Everything seems fairly obvious, I guess there are parents "out there" who need this book.
It is an interesting counter-point to the bestseller Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, which seemed to me to imply that "good" (read: affluent) parents hothouse their children.
It is an interesting counter-point to the bestseller Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, which seemed to me to imply that "good" (read: affluent) parents hothouse their children.
If you have kids. You should read it. It just makes sense to try to make our kids live more enjoyable, not less. There is too much pressure and too much homework, and kids aren't taught as well as they used to be. They have access to more information, but they don't know what to do with that information. They don't know how to use it and analyze it critically. This is a blanket statement. I realize that. I know there are some kids who are still getting good educations or have figured it out desp...more
I appreciated the author's perspective. I also had the opportunity to hear him speak at the start of his book tour. He comes as a parent himself and presents the general situation for middle to upper class families. I came away with even more dislike for the use of rewards for children.
read this for bookclub at speds. wont be going to the meeting, it was an ok read. i already subscripe to this philosphy of lightening the load on our kids and lowering our expecations for having super kids in every department. let them be kids!
A good read for an overview of what's not quite right with parenting these days and how it's actually robbing students of what they need most. Anecdotal, however, and repetitive, especially if you've read the author's In Praise of Slow.
An entertaining view into different approaches to parenting. It contains to many blanket generalisations and unsubstantiated opinions, in my opinion, to be taken seriously. But as an opinion piece, it was enjoyable.
Thought provoking exploration of the culture of hyper or hover parenting and the damages it can do to kids. Covering everything from flash cards and Baby Einstein to aggressive intervention in schooling and too many extracurricular activities, Carl Honore maps out the ways that we over-manage children and what we can do about it.
Under Pressure takes a global view, showing how alternative outdoor schools in Scotland, for example, can reduce illness in young kids while fostering confidence. Fasci...more
Under Pressure takes a global view, showing how alternative outdoor schools in Scotland, for example, can reduce illness in young kids while fostering confidence. Fasci...more
I don't have kids, but happened on this book from Honore's other works. It really puts the ideas that we hold very closely under examination, and is applicable to kids of all ages (even college).
This was an interesting read. It looks at lots of aspects of kids lives today and questions some of the approaches 21st century parents take. What I liked a lot was that unlike some non-fiction books that try to push a certain message it is not at all preachy and filled with the authors ivory tower opinions. Instead, he has done a ton of research around the world with the book packed with research and stories from parents from a number of countries. Some of the stories and information I found so...more
If I were a better writer, this is the book I would have written. I wasn't presented with any new ideas, but it is good to know that there are others out there who think similarly to me.
A quick, fun read, though it did not feel particularly profound. This is mostly a compilation of the things many a parent and kid I know has ranted about (overscheduled kids, excess media, hypercompetitiveness, endless standardized tests...) But there isn't much new in here that I haven't already heard in random forum or real-life discussions. I wish the author cited some of the study results and vignettes he quoted. Also the chapters all started to seem pretty formulaic by the end.
Every parent should read this. It was a wake-up call for me in a few areas and just a good reminder in other areas. He has a balanced approach to all his assertions. Very good book.
Depressing book about children's current childhoods, and how "helicopter" parents hover over their kids' every breath. Kids have no spontaneity in their lives or freedom to have an imagination any more. It's controlled, one hour one-to-one playdates, formal lessons for everything, tutoring, music lessons, boring, boring, boring. This controlling behavior most likely continues until the parent is dead. The child will seek parental help (financial and otherwise) to find jobs, cars, homes (if they...more
A great book for any parent who feels they are a bit too frantic about things, but feels guilty when they try to relax ... great arguments for backing off and calming down!
I felt that much of what he was saying we were already doing "correctly". It was kind of obvious to me but maybe not for others who have lots of video entertainment in their home.
I'm adding this to my to-read list, after reading about the author's concept of "slow parenting" here:
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/20...
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/20...
this was a fascinating examination of the global education system and parenting across cultures. there are many books on this subject but most of them focus solely on the US, in my experience.
May 05, 2009
Rose
marked it as gave-up
This was so irrelevant to my family's lifestyle that I couldn't see spending any more of my precious reading time with it. It's not so much about hyper-parenting as hyper-instructing, putting kids in a million after school classes and structuring their days up the wazoo.
Wow. What a great book. The book is essentially a wakeup call to parents, and those who work with children, to re-evaluate how we child-rear. The book discusses how parents and educators have become so competitive and obsessive over our children's lives yet have also ignored the most essential elements of a child's early years - play. The book touches on so many important topics in parenting: education, sports, technology, overscheduling, competition and discipline. Its such a refreshing outlook...more
Siskoni luki opuksen ja referoi minulle. Hyvältä vaikutti.
Stopped reading this after 60 pages. The books reads more like a sensationalistic rant with outrageous story after story of overparenting. While I'm sure that most are probably accurate, a few struck me wildly false. More problematic is the fact that those stories make up 90 percent of the content. Telling crazy story after crazy story and then writing "your kids don't need flash cards" isn't particularly compelling.
There are many books that address this topic more effectively, and I'd recommend...more
There are many books that address this topic more effectively, and I'd recommend...more
Another good common sense parenting book.
Very interesting...
Way too much anecdotal information, but fairly interesting just the same. I don't think there was anything new here (or anything new for me, I should say), but it's a good summary of modern parenting among the world's well-to-do.
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Carl Honoré was born in Scotland, but grew up in Edmonton, Canada. After studying history and Italian at Edinburgh University, he worked with street children in Brazil. This later inspired him to take up journalism and, since 1991, he has written from all over Europe and South America, spending three years in Buenos Aires along the way. His work has appeared in publications on both sides of the At...more
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Jul 14, 2008 06:08am
Apr 06, 2010 12:04pm