Chris Sosa's Reviews > The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure

"The Coddling of the American Mind," a collaboration between Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, is a solid step above Jonathan Haidt's previous work ("The Righteous Mind") and his first book in collaboration with Lukianoff, who serves as the current president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

"Coddling" addresses the troubling fragility of Generation Z, which the book describes as a result of an irrational cultural phenomenon the authors call "safetyism." The authors suggest that young people are anti-fragile by nature but being conditioned to behave with heightened fragility due to the messages they're receiving from educators, parents and peers.

The authors highlight academic institutions and parent-child relationships as primary enforcers of the phenomenon of heightened fragility. But rather than mocking Generation Z as "snowflakes" and telling them to get over themselves, the authors offer practical solutions with compassion and understanding.

A must-read for educators, parents and anyone who finds themselves struggling to guide the young people in their lives.