The War on "No"
Is "child-centered" parenting producing a generation of brats?
by Kathi Alexander
November 26, 2007
An increasing number of childcare experts suggest that American parents are in dire need of a comprehensive re-evaluation of how effectively we are raising our children. If parents, like most employees, received an end-of-year job evaluation, this year's would be a particularly uncomfortable assessment. Don't even think about a performance-based bonus.
According to Madeline Levine, Ph.D, author of The Price of Privilege, How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of disconnected and UnHappy Kids), parents must be willing to "take an unflinching look at their parenting skills. . . and examine the difficult modifications [they] must make to help their children grow into autonomous, moral, capable, and connected adults." Her book pays specific attention to this new form of extreme parenting, which she and many of her colleagues have identified in their busy family therapy practices, specifically in affluent neighborhoods across the country.
The phenomenon of overly indulgent parenting is described in the latest book to identify societal trends in the US. In Microtrends, The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes, author Mark J. Penn devotes an entire chapter to this topic, titled "Pampering Parents." He asserts that American parents are more permissive than ever before, but adds that, based on surveys of parenting styles, a majority of parents (55%) describe themselves as "strict" versus "permissive." Penn suggests that there may be a perception problem at play — parents may perceive themselves as "strict" when in fact, based on their responses to parenting scenarios in which they were asked to choose their preferred parental intervention — their own behavior indicates otherwise.
Apart from the possibility of denial, what is preventing today's parents American parents are more permissive than ever before.from limit setting and saying "no" to their children, the very behaviors that were formerly assumed to quite naturally come with the territory of parenthood? Babble posed this question to Eugene V. Beresin, M.D., co-director of Harvard Medical School Center For Mental Health and Media, and Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Child Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic. First, he suggests that although this topic is receiving a lot of attention in the media, the data does not support that this form of parenting spans across all cultural and economic groups. He added, that it does appear in primarily white, upper middle class families: "We do see a number of parents who are overprotective and do not consistently set clear limits."
Dr. Beresin stated, "Many parents have difficulty saying "no" to their children because they believe there is a conflict between the nurturing features of parenting (connection, attachment, empathy) and the limit-setting features of parenting. Parents might not understand that nurturing behavior is consistent with limit setting behavior."
He also said, "Some parents are insecure in their parenting and want their children to approve of them," explaining that these parents avoid appropriate limit setting because "they are unable to tolerate their children's anger, rejection or disappointment." Dr. Beresin concluded, "What many parents miss, is that one of the most important ways of expressing love as a parent, is to say 'no' to your children."
©2007 Kathryn J. Alexander and Nerve Media
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