Name: MYTH OF THE SPOILED CHILD
ISBN: 9780738218090

MYTH OF THE SPOILED CHILD

"Somehow, a set of deeply conservative assumptions about children-- what they're like and how they should be raised-- have congealed into the conventional wisdom in our society. Parents are accused of being both permissive and overprotective, unwilling to set limits and afraid to let their kids fail. Young people, meanwhile, are routinely described as entitled and narcissistic... among other unflattering adjectives. In The Myth of the Spoiled Child, Alfie Kohn systematically debunks these beliefs-- not only challenging erroneous factual claims but also exposing the troubling ideology that underlies them. Complaints about pushover parents and coddled kids are hardly new, he shows, and there is no evidence that either phenomenon is especially widespread today-- let alone more common than in previous generations. Moreover, new research reveals that helicopter parenting is quite rare and, surprisingly, may do more good than harm when it does occur. The major threat to healthy child development, Kohn argues, is posed by parenting that is too controlling rather than too indulgent." -- Publisher's description.

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lukewritesNov 2020

Interesting summary. Since fathers make unique contributions to the development of their children (eg language development [0] and social skills[1]), it makes sense that the children would also affect the fathers, if they're connected/"there" enough.

Since I'm guessing there will be a bunch of parents in this thread, let me make a humble book recommendation:

Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn

The Myth of the Spoiled Child by Alfie Kohn

Kohn is an education researcher who's kind of an iconoclast. His research has focused heavily on what _helps_ children gain the knowledge, academic wherewithal, and social-emotional skills to be successful in life. His results have been pretty surprising: Homework doesn't do much for children. "Time outs" are harmful. And the list goes on.

I'm simultaneously reading Unconditional Parenting and The Myth of the Spoiled Child, which I'd recommend. The latter looks at American accepted wisdom about children (every generation thinks that their kids are dumber, lazier, and more mollycoddled than _they_ were) and makes some pretty interesting juxtapositions between what we say we want for our kids and how we treat them.

0 - https://fpg.unc.edu/sites/fpg.unc.edu/files/resources/snapsh... 1 - https://www.researchgate.net/profile/C_Lewis2/publication/22...

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dreadpirateryanJun 2018

I'm so glad you asked this question. I rarely see people question assertions like this with regards to parenting or children's behavior.

Alfie Kohn's book, "The myth of the spoiled child", spends a lot of time pointing out that evidence behind claims like this are not only deficient of data, but are claims that seem to be made continuously throughout history of the latest generation of children.

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ColinDabritzMay 2016

Alfie Kohn has some good commentary on the topic of 'grit' as an educational philosophy: http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/downside-grit/

It's not just overrated, it can be actively harmful.

He goes further on this and other topics in the book "The Myth of the Spoiled Child"

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