So most kids don’t have easy, pampered childhoods. But as we’ll show in this book, adults are doing far more these days to protect children, and their overreach might be having some negative effects. Dictionary definitions of “coddle” emphasize this overprotection; for example, “to treat with extreme or excessive care or kindness.”20 The fault lies with adults and with institutional practices, hence our subtitle: “How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.”
