Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

by Dr Anna Lembke

His parents were as imperfect as the rest of us, but they were trying hard to help him. There was no evidence of abuse or neglect. The problem was they seemed unable to put any constraints on him. They worried that by making demands, they would “stress him out” or “traumatize him.” Perceiving children as psychologically fragile is a quintessentially modern concept. In ancient times, children were considered miniature adults, fully formed from birth. For most of Western civilization, children were regarded as innately evil. The job of parents and caregivers was to enforce extreme discipline in order to socialize them to live in the world. It was entirely acceptable to use corporal punishment and fear tactics to get a child to behave. No longer. Today, many parents I see are terrified of doing or saying something that will leave their child with an emotional scar, thereby setting them up, so the thinking goes, for emotional suffering and even mental illness in later life.