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Growing Up Too Fast: The Rimm Report on the Secret World of America's Middle Schoolers
A leading child psychologist reveals the results of an unprecedented survey of America's pre-teens-and helps parents deal with the troubling findings
Through instant messaging, cell phones, and email, today's middle schoolers hide their real lives from their parents. To find out what these youngsters are really up to, Dr. Sylvia Rimm, author of the New York Times bestseller See Jane Win , conducted a survey of over 5,400 middle school kids and talked with over 300 students in focus groups. In Growing Up Too Fast , Dr. Rimm reveals the startling results of her research.
While parents remember high school as the time when they encountered sex, drugs, body image issues, and other "teenage" problems, today's kids face these pressures in middle school. In fact, some are confronting "teen" issues by age 9 or 10. A 7th-grader told Dr. Rimm about "a friend who brags that she can chug a Bloody Mary in less than 10 seconds."
In Growing Up Too Fast , Dr. Rimm shows parents exactly what they can do to help their kids with these modern pressures. Katie Couric, host of NBC's Today show, has called her "a welcome voice of calm and reason-someone who offers practical advice, with almost immediate results." Growing Up Too Fast will show parents how to lead today's new breed of adolescents to a bright and promising future.
Through instant messaging, cell phones, and email, today's middle schoolers hide their real lives from their parents. To find out what these youngsters are really up to, Dr. Sylvia Rimm, author of the New York Times bestseller See Jane Win , conducted a survey of over 5,400 middle school kids and talked with over 300 students in focus groups. In Growing Up Too Fast , Dr. Rimm reveals the startling results of her research.
While parents remember high school as the time when they encountered sex, drugs, body image issues, and other "teenage" problems, today's kids face these pressures in middle school. In fact, some are confronting "teen" issues by age 9 or 10. A 7th-grader told Dr. Rimm about "a friend who brags that she can chug a Bloody Mary in less than 10 seconds."
In Growing Up Too Fast , Dr. Rimm shows parents exactly what they can do to help their kids with these modern pressures. Katie Couric, host of NBC's Today show, has called her "a welcome voice of calm and reason-someone who offers practical advice, with almost immediate results." Growing Up Too Fast will show parents how to lead today's new breed of adolescents to a bright and promising future.
Hardcover
Published September 17, 2005
About the author
Sylvia B. Rimm
24 books5 followersDr. Sylvia Rimm’s nine years as a contributing correspondent to NBC’s Today Show and as a favorite personality on public radio make her a familiar child psychologist to many audiences.
Dr. Rimm is a psychologist, director of Family Achievement Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, and is a clinical professor at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. Families come from all over the United States for help.
She has authored many books including How to Parent So Children Will Learn and Why Bright Kids Get Poor Grades, both 2008 National Best Books award winners from USA Book News. In addition, Dr. Rimm has written Growing Up Too Fast: The Rimm Report on the secret Lives of America’s Middle Schoolers, Keys to Parenting the Gifted Child, Raising Preschoolers, See Jane Win®, How Jane Won, and See Jane Win for Girls.
See Jane Win®, a New York Times Bestseller, was featured on the Oprah Winfrey and Today shows and in People Magazine. Her book, Rescuing the Emotional Lives of Overweight Children, was a finalist for the Books for a Better Life Award. Many parents and educators seek Dr. Rimm’s help through her books, tapes, q-cards, and newsletters.
In her parenting column, Dr. Rimm answers hundreds of letters each year from parents and grandparents in her nationally syndicated column with Creators Syndicate.
Dr. Rimm speaks and publishes internationally on family and school approaches to guiding children toward achievement, parenting, and the lives of teenagers. She is a dynamic speaker who fascinates audiences, speaking on many topics, tailoring her educational talks to the special themes of the audience.
Dr. Rimm draws experience and inspiration from her wonderful husband; her very successful children: 2 daughters and 2 sons, and their spouses; and 9
Dr. Rimm's expertise on gifted children, parenting, families, teens and tweens, and many more topics, makes her an excellent psychologist, author, columnist and speaker.
Dr. Rimm is a psychologist, director of Family Achievement Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, and is a clinical professor at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. Families come from all over the United States for help.
She has authored many books including How to Parent So Children Will Learn and Why Bright Kids Get Poor Grades, both 2008 National Best Books award winners from USA Book News. In addition, Dr. Rimm has written Growing Up Too Fast: The Rimm Report on the secret Lives of America’s Middle Schoolers, Keys to Parenting the Gifted Child, Raising Preschoolers, See Jane Win®, How Jane Won, and See Jane Win for Girls.
See Jane Win®, a New York Times Bestseller, was featured on the Oprah Winfrey and Today shows and in People Magazine. Her book, Rescuing the Emotional Lives of Overweight Children, was a finalist for the Books for a Better Life Award. Many parents and educators seek Dr. Rimm’s help through her books, tapes, q-cards, and newsletters.
In her parenting column, Dr. Rimm answers hundreds of letters each year from parents and grandparents in her nationally syndicated column with Creators Syndicate.
Dr. Rimm speaks and publishes internationally on family and school approaches to guiding children toward achievement, parenting, and the lives of teenagers. She is a dynamic speaker who fascinates audiences, speaking on many topics, tailoring her educational talks to the special themes of the audience.
Dr. Rimm draws experience and inspiration from her wonderful husband; her very successful children: 2 daughters and 2 sons, and their spouses; and 9
Dr. Rimm's expertise on gifted children, parenting, families, teens and tweens, and many more topics, makes her an excellent psychologist, author, columnist and speaker.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
September 19, 2014
So, personal info here on this one. My 12 year-old 7th grader and I have been in extreme opposition lately. Intellectually, he agrees with my rules and understands that he has chores and responsibilities. Emotionally, however, he does not like to do anything that I tell (or ask) him to do. With time pressures and lots of commitments at the beginning of the school year we are having troubles; I ask him to do X and even remind him that it will take him 30 mins to do X and we have to leave the house for some other reason in 40 minutes and he will happily argue with me for 20 minutes thereby ensuring that he doesn't have enough time to do X. He feels that I am overbearing and compulsive and I feel like he doesn't take on enough responsibility for himself.
Almost 2 weeks ago now, I declared myself done and have stopped nagging or reminding (boy it is hard to bite one's tongue). As a result, it has become his job to manage his own time and my husband and I have made it very clear that he is still expected to complete homework, etc on time. For the most part, things have been smoother. I am willing to grant him the concession that things don't have to always be done my way (or on my schedule), but I still maintain that my way is better (although I have refrained from saying this). On his schedule, he is getting a lot less sleep, but more time to unwind after school and before other activities. He is also still maintaining good grades, but my husband and I have noticed some slipping on other activities. My biggest concern is not that he can't accomplish lots, but that he will choose the lazy and procrastinating path and just squeeze through.
In the aftermath of all of this, my mother-in-law (who was an elementary school principal before she retired) has recommended that I read some of Syliva Rimm's work on Underachievers. I checked out two books from the library and read this one first (as he is 7th grader, I figured I'd go for the age-appropriate stuff first). Personally, I found this book less than helpful. It is full of "parenting tips", most of which I already follow and agree with (so I liked it from that perspective), but all of which led me to believe (once again) that my personal issue is not that my kid is underachieving as much as he is oppositional. More subjectively, I didn't always agree with Rimm's analysis and frequently thought her presentation of the data was slanted and misleading. I also tend (as those of you who have read my reviews before may know) to dislike "pop" psych books. As a former social-psychology grad student, I'd rather see the real data and interpret it myself. The "dumbed-down" version of things frequently leaves me frustrated.
Rimm opens with a discussion about changing gender roles and sexual development; I wasn't entirely convinced. Both my husband and I recall discussions about kids having sex as early as 6th and 7th grade. Along with this, she makes lots of points about homosexual targeting that I would refute. In the past 10 years there has been a lot more media and teen targeted acceptance of homosexuality. I'm not saying that everyone, everywhere is accepting, but I would think that if anything there is less fear of labeling and more acceptance now than there was when I was a kid.
I found all of her model conversations to be stilted and silly. These just did not feel like practical examples, they felt like scripts to an "after school special".
Rimm displayed a crucial flaw in her interpretation of her results. I noted it twice, but I remember coming across it more when reading. The two instances I noted were on page 52 and on page 197. She asked kids about their own characteristics (these two examples had to do with sensitivity and weight), she did not use external measures (like behaviors or scales). Then she draws conclusions like, "girls became more sensitive" or "girls who were very overweight" thought the following. THIS IS NOT CORRECT. A girl who identified as "very overweight" might not be overweight; a girl who identified as "sensitive" might not actually be sensitive. I see that she found these conclusions, but the relationship is not between having a characteristic and the outcome, it is between PERCEIVING oneself as having that characteristic an the outcome. If she had also had kids step on a scale or answer questions about certain behaviors, should could have established that they were sensitive or overweight, but this is not what she did.
I also disagreed with her analysis on pg 174 "surprise" that boys worry more than girls about popularity. Her data show that both boys and girls worry more about popularity with girls than about popularity with boys. She goes on to point out that this means that boys are more worried about opposite-sex relationships and that was surprising because girls go through puberty at a younger age. However, girls worry about popularity with girls more than boys worry about popularity with girls AND girls worry about popularity with boys more than boys worry about popularity with girls. It is true that boys worry more about popularity with girls than girls worry about popularity with boys, but BOTH SEXES WORRY ABOUT POPULARITY WITH BOYS less. I would argue (from the data in Fig 10.2) that girls are more concerned with popularity overall and that both boys and girls are more worried about being popular with the girls BECAUSE THEY ARE THE POWER HOLDERS in middle school.
I agree with her suggestion that parents use bedtime as chat time (and have played on that one for years). Yes, she is right in that kids will do almost anything to avoid bedtime (we taught our kids to read at ages 3-4 by letting them stay up late to do it). And I was happy to have her reinforce my (already pretty strict) less screen time is better rule.
Overall, it might have been helpful when it was published 9 years ago, but certainly has lost some of its relevance overtime.
Almost 2 weeks ago now, I declared myself done and have stopped nagging or reminding (boy it is hard to bite one's tongue). As a result, it has become his job to manage his own time and my husband and I have made it very clear that he is still expected to complete homework, etc on time. For the most part, things have been smoother. I am willing to grant him the concession that things don't have to always be done my way (or on my schedule), but I still maintain that my way is better (although I have refrained from saying this). On his schedule, he is getting a lot less sleep, but more time to unwind after school and before other activities. He is also still maintaining good grades, but my husband and I have noticed some slipping on other activities. My biggest concern is not that he can't accomplish lots, but that he will choose the lazy and procrastinating path and just squeeze through.
In the aftermath of all of this, my mother-in-law (who was an elementary school principal before she retired) has recommended that I read some of Syliva Rimm's work on Underachievers. I checked out two books from the library and read this one first (as he is 7th grader, I figured I'd go for the age-appropriate stuff first). Personally, I found this book less than helpful. It is full of "parenting tips", most of which I already follow and agree with (so I liked it from that perspective), but all of which led me to believe (once again) that my personal issue is not that my kid is underachieving as much as he is oppositional. More subjectively, I didn't always agree with Rimm's analysis and frequently thought her presentation of the data was slanted and misleading. I also tend (as those of you who have read my reviews before may know) to dislike "pop" psych books. As a former social-psychology grad student, I'd rather see the real data and interpret it myself. The "dumbed-down" version of things frequently leaves me frustrated.
Rimm opens with a discussion about changing gender roles and sexual development; I wasn't entirely convinced. Both my husband and I recall discussions about kids having sex as early as 6th and 7th grade. Along with this, she makes lots of points about homosexual targeting that I would refute. In the past 10 years there has been a lot more media and teen targeted acceptance of homosexuality. I'm not saying that everyone, everywhere is accepting, but I would think that if anything there is less fear of labeling and more acceptance now than there was when I was a kid.
I found all of her model conversations to be stilted and silly. These just did not feel like practical examples, they felt like scripts to an "after school special".
Rimm displayed a crucial flaw in her interpretation of her results. I noted it twice, but I remember coming across it more when reading. The two instances I noted were on page 52 and on page 197. She asked kids about their own characteristics (these two examples had to do with sensitivity and weight), she did not use external measures (like behaviors or scales). Then she draws conclusions like, "girls became more sensitive" or "girls who were very overweight" thought the following. THIS IS NOT CORRECT. A girl who identified as "very overweight" might not be overweight; a girl who identified as "sensitive" might not actually be sensitive. I see that she found these conclusions, but the relationship is not between having a characteristic and the outcome, it is between PERCEIVING oneself as having that characteristic an the outcome. If she had also had kids step on a scale or answer questions about certain behaviors, should could have established that they were sensitive or overweight, but this is not what she did.
I also disagreed with her analysis on pg 174 "surprise" that boys worry more than girls about popularity. Her data show that both boys and girls worry more about popularity with girls than about popularity with boys. She goes on to point out that this means that boys are more worried about opposite-sex relationships and that was surprising because girls go through puberty at a younger age. However, girls worry about popularity with girls more than boys worry about popularity with girls AND girls worry about popularity with boys more than boys worry about popularity with girls. It is true that boys worry more about popularity with girls than girls worry about popularity with boys, but BOTH SEXES WORRY ABOUT POPULARITY WITH BOYS less. I would argue (from the data in Fig 10.2) that girls are more concerned with popularity overall and that both boys and girls are more worried about being popular with the girls BECAUSE THEY ARE THE POWER HOLDERS in middle school.
I agree with her suggestion that parents use bedtime as chat time (and have played on that one for years). Yes, she is right in that kids will do almost anything to avoid bedtime (we taught our kids to read at ages 3-4 by letting them stay up late to do it). And I was happy to have her reinforce my (already pretty strict) less screen time is better rule.
Overall, it might have been helpful when it was published 9 years ago, but certainly has lost some of its relevance overtime.
March 6, 2009
I got through the first chapter while I was waiting for my car. The book looks excellent. I'm feeling ill equipped to be dealing with this age. Addendum: I enjoyed this book and it was a good exercise in reflection and reaffirming what I already knew.
September 22, 2019
As a mother, this book is terrifying. As a former middle school teacher, I know what she says is true. The book is informative and an important read for parents.
March 26, 2009
I picked this book up because it was referenced in "A Return to Modesty." It sounded fairly interesting from the snippets that were quoted. However I was disappointed when I read it. I was hoping for more of the social research aspect and less of the "parenting advice tips." It was definitely more of the latter. And at that, while the study was interesting, the advice was pretty banal and out-of-touch. I'm not sure who exactly the author is talking to, but my guess is that they are considerably older than myself, and probably more wealthy and status-oriented. Rimm keeps trying to shock the reader with how different middle school is now compared to "when you were in school" but it actually sounds a lot like my own middle school years, almost 20 years ago now. There are lots of band-aid solutions in this volume, including some excruciatingly clueless "coping tips" for victims of bullying. (Does the author really think that bullies will be deterred by their target being a "math star"? REALLY?) The sacred cows of adults, however, are never lead up to the altar for sacrifice. It is assumed that our children must comply with our priorities: divorces and remarriages, careerist workaholism, status and prestige obsession, and even weight and appearance fixations are all a-ok as long as we can teach the kids some "coping skills" to deal with our failings. Well I disagree, so clearly this book isn't speaking to me. Disappointing and depressing.
September 20, 2009
While it was worthwhile reading, the suggestions for how to talk with my children would make my daughters roll on the floor laughing at me if I actually tried to follow the examples. Overall, however, there was a lot of helpful oberservations that ring true.
As a result of reading this book, I oversee movie and book choices much more closely than I did in the previously. I hope I get to re-read this book soon--just as a refresher.
As a result of reading this book, I oversee movie and book choices much more closely than I did in the previously. I hope I get to re-read this book soon--just as a refresher.
January 27, 2011
This book was so awful. The author makes some absolutely inappropriate assumptions from her research. It's no wonder that when I did an Amazon search to see what others thought, the book is no longer in print!
May 4, 2012
Good overview of issues facing middle schoolers. Very heavy on the statistics from her research so I ended up skimming the latter half of the book. Got me thinking about what might come our way in the next few years and offered some good suggestions.
Want to Read
November 4, 2008OST CENT PARENT COLLECTION 1ST FLOOR YOUTH SERVICES WING 305.234 RIM
March 26, 2010
Despite its sensationalistic title, this book has excellent advice about preparing your child for the social and academic challenges of middle school.
June 1, 2012
This was a good book, informative for parents and grandparents that may not realize the life middle schoolers face. For me, it was a quick read since I am familiar with the topic.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews