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

by Leonard Sax

In a healthy culture, young adults drive much of the growth in the economy. They start new businesses. They are the most likely to become entrepreneurs. But contrary to a common impression, the United States has become substantially less entrepreneurial over the past 30 years.

Often that young adult who is living at home, dependent on his parents, is nevertheless not too concerned with what his parents think of him. He’s more interested in what his friends think. And the odds are good that many of them are living in their parents’ homes as well, spending time on social media or making videos about themselves to upload to YouTube.

one cause of the fragility in both Aaron’s case as well as Julia’s case is a weak parent-child relationship. Aaron and Julia would be the first to tell you that they love their parents. But they are not seriously concerned with what their parents think.

Kids need to value their parents’ opinion as their first scale of value, at least throughout childhood and adolescence.

If parents don’t come first, then kids become fragile. Here’s why. A good parent-child relationship is robust and unconditional.

Peer relations, by contrast, are fragile by nature.

In peer relations, everything is conditional and contingent.

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

This phenomenon—of kids valuing their relationships with same-age peers, or their sports, or their academics, or their after-school activities, above their relationships with parents—is far more prevalent in North America than elsewhere. Most kids in Ecuador, Argentina, and Scotland still look forward to spending free time with parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, just as American kids might have two generations ago. As one Scotsman told me, “We don’t even think much about ‘generations.’ We just all enjoy doing things together.” American

All of us, as parents, need to establish the primacy of the parent-child relationship over peer-to-peer relationships, over academics, and over other activities.

One simple strategy is to schedule vacations just for the family.

In all your arrangements for your child, try to make connecting with adults a higher priority than connecting with your child’s same-age peers or academics or after-school activities. Prioritize your extended family and your close adult friends in the life of your child. If you have the opportunity to move closer to your child’s aunts, uncles, and grandparents, do it. (We did.)

When you are planning a vacation, look for opportunities for your child to connect with her aunts, uncles, and grandparents. You want to give your child a different perspective. You want to connect her to your culture. That task is arguably more difficult today than at any other time in American history. Today, the default for most American kids is a primary attachment to same-age peers.

Part of your job as a parent is to educate desire. To teach your child to go beyond “whatever floats your boat.” To enjoy, and to want to enjoy, pleasures higher and deeper than video games and social media can provide. Those pleasures may be found perhaps in conversation with wise adults; or in meditation, prayer, or reflection; or in music, dance, or the arts.

after their child’s second birthday, American parents begin to go astray.

Your parenting style has to change as your child grows up.

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.

Some countries have traditions that help to maintain parent-child bonds. In Holland, schools close at noon every Wednesday so that kids can enjoy some quality midweek time with their parents. Most Dutch employers give their employees Wednesday afternoon or even the whole day off. French kids in elementary school traditionally have Wednesdays off as well, although the government is rethinking that position.12 In Geneva, Switzerland, the public elementary schools close for two hours at lunch, every day, so that kids can go home and eat lunch with a parent. Many Swiss employers accommodate that tradition by giving their employees 2½ hours off for lunch, so that a parent can be at home with the child for that meal.13

American employers aren’t going to give us, the employees, 2 hours off for lunch. They’re not going to give us every Wednesday afternoon off. So we have to fight for supper with our families. Fight for time with your child. 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. And turn the devices off.

As Neufeld writes, “the waning of adult authority is directly related to the weakening of attachments with adults and their displacement by peer attachments.”15

Parents have to regain the central place in the lives of their children, displacing same-age peers. Same-age friends are great for your child. But your child’s first allegiance must be to you, not to her best friend.

Failure comes to us all. The willingness to fail, and then to move on with no loss of enthusiasm, is a mark of character.16 The opposite of fragility, as we have discussed fragility in this chapter, is the willingness to fail. When kids are secure in the unconditional acceptance of their parents, they can find the courage to venture and to fail. When kids value the good regard of their peers or their own self-concept above the good regard of their parents, they lose the willingness to fail. They become fragile.

Which of the following, measured when a child is 11 years of age, is the best predictor of happiness and overall life satisfaction roughly 20 years later, when that child has become a 31- or 32-year-old adult? A. IQ B. Grade point average C. Self-control D. Openness to new ideas E. Friendliness The correct answer is C, self-control.

intelligence predicts both income and wealth: people who are more intelligent earn more money and have a higher net worth, on average, compared with people of below-average intelligence. But intelligence does not predict happiness or unhappiness. Smart people are not happier or unhappier, on average, compared with less intelligent people. Nor does intelligence predict life satisfaction. Smarter people might have more money compared with less-smart people, on average, but they are not any more satisfied with their lives overall.

Conscientiousness. Individuals who are more Conscientious earn and save more money, even after researchers adjust for intelligence, race, ethnicity, and education. Individuals who are more Conscientious are also significantly happier than individuals who are less Conscientious, and they are substantially more satisfied with their lives.3 Other studies have shown that Conscientiousness predicts better health and longer life.4 People who are more Conscientious are less likely to become obese.5 They are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease.6 They are more likely to live longer and happier lives7 and, as noted above, more likely to be satisfied with their lives.8 Teenagers who are more Conscientious are less likely subsequently to use drugs or alcohol or to engage in risky sexual behaviors.9 Although it’s true that more Conscientious individuals enjoy higher socioeconomic status on average compared with less Conscientious individuals, the benefit of Conscientiousness with regard to health can’t be attributed to socioeconomic status for two reasons: first, the researchers in all these studies controlled for socioeconomic status; second, the magnitude of the health benefit of Conscientiousness is more than three times the benefit associated with socioeconomic status.10 No other human trait can pull off this hat trick. No other human trait predicts significantly greater wealth and health and happiness among those who possess it compared with those who do not.

self-control is the characteristic most emblematic of Conscientiousness.

In short, many parents have come to assume that good grades and test scores are the best measures of achievement and the most reliable key to future happiness. But they are mistaken. If you want your child to be healthy and wealthy and wise, then your first priority should not be measures of cognitive achievement, such as high grades or test scores, but measures of Conscientiousness, such as honesty, integrity, and self-control.

the best single measure of Conscientiousness is self-control.

Let’s talk about money. What factors at 11 years of age predict who’s going to be earning the most money at age 32? Who’s going to be in financial distress? (Incidentally, those are two separate questions. How much money you earn is not a reliable predictor of whether you will be in financial distress. People earning $300,000 a year are somewhat less likely to be in financial distress compared with people earning $50,000 a year, but only somewhat. Regardless of income, it’s often a struggle for people to live within their means.) Once again, the trait of self-control as measured in childhood predicts adult wealth with uncanny accuracy. Likewise, the lack of self-control in childhood predicts a higher likelihood of financial distress when that child grows up to be an adult.

How do you help an 8-year-old build self-control? You say, “No dessert until you eat your vegetables.” How do you help a teenager build self-control? You say, “No TV or Internet or video games until after you’ve done your homework.” In my own medical practice, I have personally witnessed a child change from impulsive and out-of-control to self-controlled within a matter of weeks—without medication. All it takes is for the parents seriously to implement a simple program that builds self-control. You already know how to do this. “Put your toys away after you play with them. No use of the cell phone until you do your household chores.”

Let me give you a tip. If you want to become a more authoritative parent, if you are going to insist on your child being honest and self-controlled, then sit down with your child and say so. Every household has rules, most of which are implicit and unspoken. Matters of habit. If you are going to change the rules, tell your child what you are doing and why. Parents who explicitly announce, “Things Are Changing As Of Today,” then enforce the new rules and are not cowed when their child yells, “You are totally ruining my life—I hate you!” are surprised by how dramatic the change is. Not in one day. Not in one week. But after six weeks of consistent enforcement of the rules, your child will be more pleasant, and more respectful of you and of other adults. And both of you will be enjoying life more.

There is one inescapable truth: you must teach by example. You can’t expect your child to exercise self-control if you stay up past midnight watching TV or surfing the Web. You can’t expect your child to be responsible if you don’t keep your word. And you can’t expect your child to be industrious if you yourself are often looking for the easy way out. To become a better parent, you must become a better person.

What’s the secret to raising smart kids? Stanford professor Carol Dweck thinks she knows. Her secret in one sentence: never tell your child that he or she is smart (identity); instead, praise him or her for working hard (behavior).20

Professor Dweck says that you should praise kids based not on their identity (smart / not smart) but on their behavior (trying hard / not trying hard).

When it comes to teaching virtue, identity seems to work better than behavior. You are a very kind person works better than That was a very kind thing you did.

Exercising self-restraint in today’s teen culture is downright un-American.

Pepsi recently launched a new marketing campaign, “Live for Now.” I took photos of huge Pepsi billboards in various American cities with enormous images of Beyoncé promoting the slogan “Live for Now.”

I’m not blaming Pepsi. I don’t see the Pepsi marketing campaign as a cause of this disintegration but as a symptom of the disintegration. The cause is the collapse of American parenting. And I don’t blame Pepsi for that.

You don’t teach virtue by preaching virtue. You teach virtue by requiring virtuous behavior, so that virtuous behavior becomes a habit.

If you compel children to act more virtuously, they actually become more virtuous. In the biblical book of Proverbs, which scholars tell us was written more than 2,500 years ago, we read, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”29 In other words, if you compel a child to behave virtuously, then when he is an adult he will continue to behave virtuously.

The Western tradition begins not only with the Greeks and the Romans but also with Judaism. For that reason I will ask your permission to quote one more time from the Hebrew Bible, this time from the book of Deuteronomy. God has just given the commandments at Mount Sinai, and the text reads V’shinantam l’vanecha: . Those two Hebrew words are usually translated into English as “Teach them diligently to your children,” or something along those lines. But that’s not what the Hebrew says. The Hebrew says, “Inscribe them on your children.” The verb shanan, which I am translating as “inscribe,” could also be translated as “incise”—it literally means to cut with a knife.33 “Teach them diligently” is watered down. I am not preaching or proselytizing here. I am not a missionary. I am a family doctor trying to understand what I am seeing in the office and across this country and why I didn’t see it 25 years ago when I started my practice. You teach virtue by requiring children to behave virtuously. In other words, you ask them to pretend that they are virtuous before they really are.