Sequoia’s Reviews > The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids > Status Update

Babies "outsource" much of their psychological and emotional governance to their caregivers.

Children who don't feel that they "own" their lives, children for whom feelings, thoughts, and actions come from outside as much as they come from inside, are at risk for being easily manipulated by others.

Self-efficacy is concerned with judgements of personal capability. The ability to act appropriately in one's best interest is termed agency.

A sense of livability is the core of all healthy self-development.

It is at this intersection of internal motivation, parental support, and develop interests that the child's sense of self is taking shape.

What children really need is to be educated about the values of perseverance and perspective, and to understand that learning and performance are by always the same thing.

Internal motivation is the generator that propels Holstein to figure out their particular interests, abilities and passions. External motivation strips leaning of excitement, since what is most valuable is not the learning experience per se but whatever perks accompany it.

Buying children off is a parenting strategy that only leads to a lessening of parental power and a fortifying of childish greed.

Using money as a motivator models materialism to the child and it schools them in a strategy if relying on others rather than on themselves to make changes in their lives. The more desperate we feel about needing to use rewards to reinforce compliance, the less likely it is to be successful.