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

by Leonard Sax

He doesn’t listen. He seems to have little or no self-control. Thirty years ago, perhaps even 20 years ago, the school counselor or principal might have said to the parent, “Your son is disrespectful. He is rude. He exhibits no self-control. You need to teach him some basic rules about civilized behavior if he is going to stay at this school.” Today it is much less common for an American school counselor or administrator to speak so bluntly to a parent. Instead, the counselor or administrator will suggest a consultation with a physician or a psychologist. And the physician or psychologist will lo...

As a parent, you have to make a decision in the face of uncertainty. In the face of that uncertainty, if you must use a medication, I recommend avoiding these potentially dangerous stimulants and instead using safer nonstimulant medications for ADHD such as Strattera, Intuniv, or

Wellbutrin. (I have no affiliation with and I accept no payments from the drug companies that manufacture these or any other medications.)

I see a deeper problem: a shift of authority and responsibility away from the parents to the prescribing physician. When the child subsequently misbehaves, many parents say, “He can’t help it; he has ADHD / bipolar disorder / Autism Spectrum” (circle one).

As one kid told me, “I can’t help it, I have Asperger’s.” In fact, a psychiatric diagnosis

should be a reason for parents to become more involved, more engaged, more devoted to teaching self-control and Fulghum’s Rules. But I have observed firsthand how the prescribing of psychiatric medication often shifts responsibility away from the child and the family to the prescribing physician.

What can you do, in concrete terms, to minimize the risk that your child will be prescribed medication he or she doesn’t need for a psychiatric condition he or she doesn’t really have?

Recommendation #1: Command. Don’t ask. Don’t negotiate. Modern American parents are forever rationalizing their decisions to their children. There are many problems with that approach. The mere fact that the parent feels compelled to negotiate already undermines the authority of the parent. When you lay down a rule, and

your children ask why, answer, “Because Mommy (or Daddy) says so, that’s why.” American parents two generations ago did this routinely and comfortably. Most British and Australian parents still do. American parents today—seldom.

It’s reasonable to offer an explanation to a teenager. Just don’t let your explanation slide into negotiation.

Recommendation #2: Eat dinner with your kids. And no cell phones allowed, no TV in the background during dinner.

Kids who had more meals with parents were less likely to have “internalizing problems” such as feeling sad, anxious, or lonely. They were less likely to have “externalizing problems” such as fighting, skipping school, stealing, etc. They were more likely to help others and to report feeling satisfied with their own lives.

The bottom line on family meals: • A family in which kids often have meals with parents is likely to be a family in which parents still have authority; a family in which parents and family interaction still matter. • But just insisting that everybody eat together, while the TV is blaring and the kids are texting at the dinner table, probably won’t accomplish much by itself.38

When family time is a top priority, parents are likely to have a better sense of what’s going on in their children’s lives. If you get a report from school that your son has misbehaved or your daughter has been a bully, don’t rush to the child psychiatrist. Ask your child what happened. Talk with the teachers and the school administrators. Do everything you can to teach the rules of good behavior to your children. And enforce those rules. Remember that you—not the teacher, not the coach—must be the primary authority responsible for

instilling in your child the rules of good behavior.

she argued that the bad behavior of American kids is the

price we pay for the greater creativity of young Americans. She’s assuming that young Americans are more creative than young people in other countries. But is that assumption correct? Are young Americans, in fact, more creative than young people in other countries?

The United States now ranks #11 in the world in the

filing of international patents per capita, behind Denmark, Finland, Germany, Israel, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, South Korea, Sweden, and Switzerland.5

My American acquaintance defended the insubordination of American students as a supposed prerequisite for creativity. I dispute that assumption. The golden era of creativity for young Americans was 1945 through 1970, when US students were much more likely to be respectful and deferential to teachers.

The silver era of creativity spanned 1970 through 1995, when the attitude of American students toward teachers was still much more respectful than it is today. The marked rise of the culture of disrespect over the past two decades has actually been associated with a decline in American creativity.

The culture of disrespect is not essential to creativity. The evidence suggests that the culture of disrespect actually undermines true creativity while strengthening same-age peer conformism.

In her book The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way, journalist Amanda Ripley made a careful comparison of the United States with countries that outperform the United States on the PISA

exam by wide margins. Ripley identifies three domains where she thinks the United States has gone wrong:

Overinvestment in technology:

In the most successful countries, the classrooms are typically “utilitarian and spare” with no digital gadgets.

Overemphasis on sports:

In most of the rest of the world, the first mission of the school is academics. In the United States, at many high schools, sports routinely preempt academics. Even at leading US high schools, varsity athletes are often excused from class to participate in games.

Low selectivity in teacher training:

“Incredibly, at some U.S. colleges, students [have] to meet higher academic standards to play football than to become teachers.”17

important. I would like to add one more: the culture of disrespect.

Kevin Carey, director of the education policy program at the New America Foundation,

Many college faculty and staff report a noticeable fragility among today’s

students. Some describe them as “teacups”—beautiful, but liable to break with the slightest drop.

The common thread connecting Aaron the out-of-shape gamer to Julia the would-be engineer is fragility.

The answer in both cases is that these kids are fragile. It doesn’t take much for them to give up and retreat, as Aaron did, or to fall apart, as Julia did.

Kids need to value their parents’ opinion as their first scale of value, at least throughout childhood and adolescence. (Of course this rule cannot apply if the parents are incompetent or pathological or absent altogether.

If parents don’t come first, then kids become fragile. Here’s why. A good parent-child relationship is robust and unconditional. My daughter might shout at me, “I hate you!” But she would know that her outburst is not going to change our relationship. My wife and I might choose to suspend some of her privileges for a week if she were to have such an outburst, but she would know that we both still love her. That won’t change, and she knows it.

Children and teenagers need unconditional love and acceptance today no less than they did 30 or 50 years ago. But they cannot get unconditional love and acceptance from their peers or from a report card. That’s one reason why there has been an explosion in the prevalence of anxiety and depression among American teenagers, as they frantically

try to secure their attachment to other teens, as they try to gain unconditional love and acceptance from sources that are unable to provide it.8

One simple strategy is to schedule vacations just for the family. When your daughter asks whether she can bring her best friend along, the answer must be NO. If the best friend comes along, then a significant portion of time on the vacation will go to your daughter bonding with her best friend. The main purpose of the family vacation should be to

strengthen the bonds between parent and child, not to give the kids an expensive playdate. Even simpler is to create rituals, such as a weekly parent-child visit to a local coffee shop. Taking a walk together to the coffee shop, if it is within walking distance, provides a good opportunity to talk and listen to whatever your daughter or son might have to say. The family supper, the family trip to the movies, and even a ride in the car all provide opportunities to strengthen these bonds.

Another young person in a similar situation said to me, “I’m just trying to do my own thing. Whatever floats your boat, you know?” That notion—whatever floats your boat; if it feels good, do it—reflects a particularly American perspective. That lack of concern is one factor contributing to the rapid rise in the proportion of young Americans who are not working and not looking for work.

Part of your job as a parent is to educate desire.

The parent-child attachment has to be the first priority.

At 1 year, American toddlers are just as competent as toddlers in the Netherlands or in New Zealand. But after their child’s second birthday, American parents begin to go astray.

When your child is an infant or toddler, you play the role of the cheerleader.

But as your child gets older, your role must shift. Less cheerleader, more Jürgen Klinsmann and Jill Ellis.11 You have to correct. To redirect. To point out shortcomings.

You have to teach your child your values rather than allowing him or her to adopt by default the values promoted by contemporary American culture.

Cancel or forego after-school activities, if need be, in order to have more evening meals together. Your kids can’t attach to you if they hardly ever see you.