The Collapse of Parenting: How We Hurt Our Kids When We Treat Them Like Grown-Ups

by Leonard Sax

“She just won’t eat those things,” Mary said. She would if she were hungry enough, I thought to myself. But I didn’t say it.

in contemporary American culture, it’s hard for a teen to “just say no” without looking uncool. An excuse is helpful. A girl or boy could say, when offered a drink, “Hey, I’d love to, but I’m on my way to the Phillips’ house and you know their crazy dad—he’s the one with the Breathalyzer.” And that provides a respectable excuse not to drink.

“Let kids decide” has become a mantra of good parenting. As I will show, these well-intentioned changes have been profoundly harmful to kids.

The treatment will be something—three things, in fact—that you can do starting today, in your home, without spending any money, that will improve the odds of a good outcome for your child.

other aspects of the collapse of parenting are peculiar to North America and especially to the United States. Chief among these is the culture of disrespect.

Girls reach full maturity in terms of brain development by about 22 years of age; boys not until about 25 years.11

Parents today suffer from role confusion. “Role confusion” is a plausible translation of Statusunsicherheit, a term used by German sociologist Norbert Elias to describe the transfer of authority from parents to children.26

“If all your friends joined a particular social media site, and they all wanted you to join, but one of your parents did not approve, would you still join the site?” The most common response to the question was neither Yes or No, but laughter. The notion that kids would bother to consult their parents

about joining a social media site was so implausible that it was funny. My parents don’t even know what ask.fm is. They would probably think it was some kind of radio station! So why would I ask them if I should join? If all my friends are joining that site, then of course I am going to join.

It’s less controversial to concentrate on phonics than to teach Fulghum’s Rules or any other absolute notions of good behavior. It’s easier for teachers and school

administrators to suggest that a child has Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder and /or Oppositional-Defiant Disorder and might benefit from medication than to exhort parents to work harder at the task of teaching social skills to their child. The end result, as I have already said, is that parents today shoulder a greater burden than parents in previous generations but have fewer resources to do their job.

Strong parental authority means that parents matter more than same-age peers. In contemporary American culture, peers matter more than parents.

American kids today have their own culture, a culture of disrespect, which they learn from their peers and which they teach to their peers.

What does it mean to assert your authority as a parent? It doesn’t necessarily mean being a tough disciplinarian. Among other things, it means ensuring that the parent-child relationship takes priority over the relationships between the child and her or his same-age peers.

The cult of youth, the celebration of youth for youth’s sake, is more pervasive in the United States than in any other country I have visited. In American cities, I often see billboards promoting plastic surgeons who promise to make you look younger. I have rarely seen such billboards in the United Kingdom or Germany or Switzerland.

When the culture values youth over maturity, the authority of parents is undermined.

Here’s an example of what not to do—in other words, an example of how many American parents now behave. Megan and Jim, both forty-something parents, had planned a four-day ski vacation between Christmas and New Year’s. Their 12-year-old daughter, Courtney, politely declined to join them. “You know I’m not crazy about skiing,”

she said. “I’ll just stay at Arden’s house for those four days. Her parents said it’s OK. They have a spare guest room and everything.” So her parents went on the ski vacation by themselves, and Courtney spent four days at the home of her best friend. “I didn’t mind. In fact, I was pleased that Courtney could be so independent,” Megan told me. But Megan is mistaken. Courtney isn’t independent. No 12-year-old truly is. Instead, Courtney has transferred her natural dependence from her parents, where it should be, to her same-age peers, where it shouldn’t be. Courtney’s top priorities now lie in pleasing her friends, being liked by her friends, being accepted by same-age peers. Her parents have become an afterthought, a means to other ends.

Because having fun together is one foundation of authoritative parenting in the modern world. Because if most of the good times come when kids are having fun with other kids, then it’s no wonder that kids don’t want to spend more time with adults.

“For the first time in history,” Neufeld observes, “young people are turning for instruction, modeling, and guidance not to mothers, fathers, teachers, and other responsible adults but to people whom nature never intended to place in a parenting role—

their own peers. . . . Children are being brought up by immature persons who cannot possibly guide them to maturity.

Too often, parents today allow their desire to please their child to govern their parenting. If your relationship with your child is governed by your own desire to be loved by him or her, the odds

are good that you will not achieve even that objective.

And while these kids might have been enjoying themselves at the moment, after a fashion, eating the doughnuts and texting, their parents’ failure to enculture and instruct them rightly means that these kids will be ill-equipped to withstand the challenges of later adolescence and adulthood.

“Thirty years ago, we would not have expected to see 12-year-olds with symptoms of cardiac disease,” Dr. Blackburn said. “Now we’ve had to start a pediatric preventive cardiology clinic.”

Researchers now generally agree on three factors that have driven the rise in obesity and overweight and the decline

in fitness among children. Those three factors are: 1. What kids eat 2. What kids do 3. How much kids sleep Other factors—such as endocrine disruptors, intestinal bacteria, consumption of genetically modified wheat, and antibiotics—may play a role, but there is less consensus regarding those other factors.10 Let’s talk about factors 1, 2, and 3, so you can see the pivotal role played by parental authority—or more precisely, by the abdication of parental authority and by parents’ role confusion—in each of those factors.

Healthy foods have given way to less healthy foods and beverages in the diet of the average American kid.

With all due respect, I think the First Lady was mistaken to put the blame on a supposed lack of enthusiasm by district administrators. American children

today grow up in a culture in which their desires are paramount; in which school lessons are often presented as entertainment; in which university professors are graded by students based in part on how much fun their classes are.

Restricting the amount of time when food is available to 9 or 12 hours out of 24—without restricting calories—improves health and brings weight back to normal. “Time-restricted eating didn’t just prevent but also reversed obesity,” said Dr. Satchidananda Panda, author of one of the studies cited here.19

In the past 15 years, researchers have recognized that getting less sleep at night appears to lead to overweight and obesity.

Here’s the expert consensus on the amount of sleep children should have:29 • Preschool and kindergarten, age 2 to 5 years: at least 11 hours a day • Elementary and middle school, 6 to 12 years of age: at least 10 hours a day • Teenagers, 13 to 18 years: at least 9 hours a day

The presence of devices in the bedroom may be one factor contributing to sleep deprivation among American kids.

In the past two decades, quite a few studies have reported just that finding: namely, that children and teenagers who are defiant, disrespectful, and just plain bratty are more likely to become overweight or obese, compared with kids who are better behaved.36

Here’s what you need to teach with respect to diet and exercise: Eat right: Broccoli and Brussels sprouts come before pizza and ice cream. Eat less: Don’t supersize. Prepare small servings and insist that kids

finish everything on the plate, including vegetables, before they get second helpings. Exercise more: Turn off the devices. Go outside. Play. You can do this.

The problem lies not in Trent at all, but in his parents’ failure to set and enforce consistent limits and consequences.

parents today are less comfortable asserting authority than parents in previous generations.

The job of the parent is to teach self-control. To explain what is and is not acceptable. To establish boundaries and enforce consequences.

Trent needed parents who had the confidence and authority to teach Fulghum’s Rules.

Medication fills the role of governing the child’s behavior, a role that the parents ought to have filled. For many American parents, it is now easier to administer a pill prescribed by a board-certified physician than to firmly instruct a child and impose consequences for bad behavior. That’s a shame.

Sofie brought Dylan to me because she was concerned about Dylan losing that spark. Talking with Sofie and Dylan, I learned that Dylan had a video-game console in his bedroom. Sofie had no idea how much time Dylan spent playing video games because his door was closed at bedtime.

Sleep deprivation mimics ADHD almost perfectly. Medications such as Adderall and Vyvanse are amphetamines: they are “speed.” The appropriate remedy for sleep deprivation, I explained to Sofie, is not prescription stimulant medication. The appropriate remedy for sleep deprivation is for the parents to turn off the video-game console and turn out the lights so that the kid can get to sleep.

Based on my experience in the office, I believe that sleep deprivation is one reason why American kids today are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD,

compared with American kids three decades ago. And the failure of parents to assert their authority is a big part of the reason why American kids are getting less sleep than they used to.

Today, American parents are hungry for brain-based explanations. Instead of removing the cell phone and the laptop from their kids’ bedroom so their kids can get a good night’s sleep, many American parents are medicating their

kids with powerful stimulants such as Adderall or Concerta or Vyvanse or Metadate to compensate for their sleep deprivation, usually without any awareness that sleep deprivation, not ADHD, is the underlying problem responsible for their kids’ failure to pay attention.

I have seen plenty of kids in Australia and New Zealand and the United Kingdom bouncing and making buzzing noises when they are supposed to be sitting still. But the teacher does not refer the child for psychiatric evaluation. Instead the teacher—who is typically far more confident of her authority than an American teacher would be—tells the child in a firm voice that she has had quite enough of that silliness, thank you, and it is high time for it to stop.

Imagine an 8- or 10-year-old boy who misbehaves. He talks back to teachers. He is deliberately spiteful and vindictive.