The Collapse of Parenting

This summer I read the book The Collapse of Parenting by Leonard Sax. I was familiar with his writings having read Why Gender Matters a few years ago (a fantastic read) and more recently, Girls on the Edge.

He bases his parenting insights on, as he says, "more than 90,000 office visits... in my role as a practicing physician between 1989 and today."

The book doesn't address everything you need to know as a parent, and for those who are Christian, you'll notice the lack of biblical insights. Yet I also had the sense that he was at least partly basing his perspective on a biblical worldview. If one feels parenting has "collapsed," then it must have fallen from some standard.

Here's a collection of notes I captured from the book. Reading through these won't take long (7 minutes?) and you really should also read the book. I'm only skimming the surface here. His stories from actual parents sprinkled all throughout the book are incredible.

Some of his main themes are:

• Parents need to be the authority in the home, yet they've given that up. 
• We've given kids too much freedom and not enough direction and it's hurting them. 
• You can make some hard choices to regain your authority even if your child doesn't like it. 
• You are their parent first before you are their friend. 
• Do the hard thing and it will be better for them.

I've bolded a few things here and there for the skimmers our there.

Enjoy.

THE COLLAPSE OF PARENTING BOOK NOTES

Introduction: Parents Adrift

The main problems he plans to address in the book...
7 - American kids are now much more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD or bipolar disorder or other psychiatric disorders than they were 25 years ago... and they are heavier and less fit than 25 years ago. Long term outcome studies suggest that American kids are less resilient and more fragile than they used to be.... What's going on? Over the past three decades, there has been a massive transfer of authority from parents to kids... "Let the kids decide" has become a mantra of good parenting. As I will show, these well-intentioned changes have ben profoundly harmful to kids.

CH1: The Culture of Disrespect

14 - Scholars generally agree that the purpose of our specie's prolonged childhood and adolescence is enculturation: the process of acquiring all the skills and knowledge and mastering all the customs and behaviors required for competency in the culture in which you live. It takes years to master the details of Japanese language, culture, and behavior; the same is true of Swiss language, culture, and behavior. (to adapt to their local culture)... it means learning how people get along with one another in that culture.

17 - no child is born knowing the rules.

18 - Parents today suffer from role confusion. Role Confusion is a plausible translation of Statusunsicherheit, a term used by German sociologist Norbert Elias to describe the transfer of authority from parents to children.

19 - 50 years ago, teenagers would have asked parents before joining a club at school... Not so today. I posed an updated question to teens across the US, 'if all your friends joined a particular social media site, and they all wanted you to join, but one of your parents did not approve, would you still join the site?' The most common response to the question was neither Yes or No, but laughter. The notion that kids would bother to consult their parents about joining a Social media site was so implausible that it was funny. My parents don't even know what ask.fm is. They would probably think it was some kind of radion station! So why would I ask them if I should join? If all my friends are joining the site, then of course I am going to join. In american culture today, same-age peers matter more than parents.

20-in our time, the schools have retreated from normative instruction about right and wrong in order to focus on academics.

20-I have learned that when I speak to parents, many confuse "parental authority "with "parental discipline." They think that parental authority is all about enforcing discipline. In fact, parental authority is primarily about a scale of value. Strong parental authority means that parents matter more than same age peers. In contemporary American culture, peers matter more than parents.

21-When I speak about the culture of disrespect, I am referring not only to the "ingratitude seasoned with contempt "already noted, which is now the characteristic attitude of many American kids toward their parents; I mean also that American kids now commonly show disrespect toward one another and that they live in a culture in which such disrespect is considered the norm. Five decades ago, the Beatles single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was a worldwide hit. In 2006, Akon released a single titled "I Want to F*** You." (The clean version, titled "I Wanna Love You, "was broadcast on the radio, but the original version with the foul language was the one which reached #1 in the United States.)

22-Slogans on T-shirts epitomize disrespect for one another. (JCM: vs. disrespect for parents. That reality is assumed, but he was shocked to see the great deal of disrespect for one another.)

22-23 - Looking through the list of the 150 most popular TV shows on American television right now, I did not find one that picks a parent as consistently reliable and trustworthy.

JCM: (It's not just dads that are being beat up on TV - it's ALL parents).

24 - Throughout the 20th century, the legitimacy of almost every kind of authority became suspect throughout Western Europe and North America. Politically, we might summarize the second half of the 20th century as the empowerment of the previously disenfranchised: people of color were empowered. Women were empowered. Employees (at least in theory and lip service) were empowered. And children were empowered. Nobody stopped to say, "Yes, it is right that adults should have equal rights in their relations with one another.  It is right that women and people of color should have equal rights relative to white males. But what is true for adults in their relations with other adults may not be true for parents in their relations with children." Empower everybody! Why not? My answer is: because the first job of the parent is to teach culture to the child. And authoritative teaching requires authority.

Ch2: Why Are So Many Kids Overweight?

40-New evidence suggests that allowing kids to have on-demand access to food may be one factor promoting obesity, independent of the total number of calories consumed. Ad lib feeding throughout the day appears to disrupt circadian rhythms, interfering with normal metabolism and disturbing the balance of hormones that regulate appetite. Recent studies of laboratory animals have found that animals with ad lib access to food became fatter than animals with only scheduled access to food, even when the total calories consumed are kept the same in the two groups. Restricting the amount of time when food is available to 9 or 12 hours out of 24 – without restricting calories – improves health and brings weight back to normal. "Time restricted eating didn't just prevent but also reversed obesity, "said Dr. Satchidananda Panda, author of one of the studies cited here.

41-In 1965, according to one study, the typical American spent 92 minutes a day watching TV, which works out to about 10 1/2 hours a week.

42- According to the latest nationwide survey, the average 9 year old American child now spends more than 50 hours per week in front of an electronic screen, which includes TV, computer screens, and cell phones. The average American teenager now spends more than 70 hours per week in front of the screen.

42-3 - in 1969, 41% of American kids either walked or rode their bikes to school. By 2001, that proportion had dropped to 13%.

45-One question I have asked regularly since 2001 is, "what's your favorite thing to do in your spare time, when you're by yourself with no one watching?" From 2001 through about 2010, I heard lots of different answers. But since about 2011, one answer has become predominate among American kids, especially affluent kids. That answer is: sleep. (JCM: i.e. kids are extremely sleep deprived).

Ch3: Why Are So Many Kids on Medication?

50- In many American kindergartens today, as I said in chapter 1, the first priority is more likely to be teaching diphthongs rather than teaching respect, courtesy, and manners.

50-1 - The job of the parent is to teach self control. To explain what is and is not acceptable. To establish boundaries and enforce consequences. Two decades ago, that was common sense. Not anymore. At least not in the United States.

52- He tells the story of a kid, Trent, whose parents were complaining of his consistent mood swings and wanted to attribute it to a medical condition. he responded, "His behavior was pretty much what you would expect of a kid who has never known consistent discipline."

53-when he tried to tell Trent's mom that they needed consistent discipline, rather than medication, she stormed out in a huff... and then this came out... "Less than [a few] weeks after that Mom stormed out of my office, Dr. Biederman and his two colleagues at Harvard admitted to receiving more than $4 million from Johnson & Johnson (the manufacture of Risperdal), AstraZeneca (the manufacture of Seroquel), and other drug companies. The payments were discovered in the course of an investigation launch by US Senator Charles Grassley and conducted by the staff of the Senate Judiciary committee. To be clear Biederman and his colleagues broke no law. There's no law prohibiting doctors from accepting millions of dollars from drug companies. But Dr. Biederman's action was unethical, in my judgment. I think Dr. Biederman should have told Newsweek and everybody else that he was, in essence, acting as a paid spokesperson for the drug companies. But he kept the money a secret, or at least it seems as though he tried to.

53-The temper tantrums of belligerent children are increasingly being characterized as psychiatric illnesses.

54-This phenomenon is peculiar to North America. German researchers found that during roughly the same period in which diagnosis of bipolar disorder was exploding for children in the United States, the proportion of children diagnosed with bipolar disorder in Germany actually decreased.

57- Sleep deprivation mimics ADHD almost perfectly. (tells story of kid previously diagnosed as ADHD who was simply sleep deprived. When he got the sleep he needed, the symptoms went away).

57-The basic duties of a parent is to ensure that the child gets a good nights sleep rather than staying up late playing games. (JCM: i.e. self control he mentioned earlier). That's not a new idea. But 30 years ago, we didn't have Internet enabled devices that make it easy for kids to play online with other kids at 2 AM. Now we do. That means that parents have to be more assertive of their authority than in previous decades. But many American parents have abdicated their authority instead.

59-On how medicating children seems to be primarily an American phenomenon driven by drug companies: 103 out of every 1000 American teenagers are now taking or have taken medications for ADHD. In the United Kingdom, 7.4 out of 1000 are now taking, or have taken medications for ADHD.... in other words, the likelihood of being treated with medication for ADHD is nearly 14 times higher for teenagers in the United States compared with teens in the United Kingdom... Bottom line: on this parameter, if you are a kid, living in the United States is a major risk factor for being put on medication.

61-2 - Why such increase? Why is ADHD so much more common in the United States today than it was 30 or 40 years ago? And why is it so much more common today in the United States than elsewhere? My answer is "the medicalization of misbehavior." Instead of correcting our kids' misbehavior, we American parents today or more likely to medicate our kids in hopes of fixing the behavior problem with the pill.... In most European countries, the proportion of individuals 18 and under who are on any kind of psychotropic medication is typically 2% or lower, and most of these individuals are 16-, 17-, and 18-year-olds taking medications for depression or anxiety. In the United States, the proportion of children and adolescents on psychotropic medications is now above 10%, with some surveys reporting rates above 20%. Many of those children are age 12 and under, taking prescription stimulants, "mood stabilizers." Between 1993 and 2009, the prescribing of antipsychotic medications… For American children 12 and under increased more than 700%.

64- 30 years ago, perhaps even 20 years ago, the school counselor or principal might've said to the parent, "your son is disrespectful. He is rude. He exhibits no self-control. You need to teach him some basic rules about civilized behavior if he is going to stay at the school." Today it is much less common for an American school counselor or administrator to speak so bluntly to a parent. Instead, the counselor or administrator will suggest a consultation with a physician or a psychologist. And the physician or psychologist will look at the reports from the school and talk about oppositional defiant disorder or or attention deficit hyper active disorder or or pediatric bipolar disorder... What's the difference? The big difference is, when I say, "your son is disrespectful," the burden of responsibility is on you the parent and your child. With that responsibility comes the authority to do something about the problem. But when I say, "your son may meet criteria for a psychiatric disorder," then the burden of responsibility shifts away from the parent and the child to the prescribing physician and, indeed, to the whole burgeoning medical psychiatric counseling complex.

Now he gives some recommendations:

69- Recommendation #1: When appropriate, command. Don't ask. Avoid the question mark. Instead of "Do you think maybe it's time to leave the playground?" Say "it's time to go home." The question mark undermines your authority. I'm amazed by the difficulty with some parents have in speaking to their children without question marks.

(JCM: amen and amen. This is a huge issue that most parents don't even realizing they are doing.)

70-71-Recommendation #2: Eat dinner with your kids. An no cell phones allowed, not TV in the background during dinner.

(JCM: This is fascinating that this one simple thing can have such a huge influence.)

Kids who had more meals with parents were less likely to have "internalizing problems "such as feeling sad, anxious, or lonely. They were less likely to have "externalizing problems "such as fighting, skipping school, stealing, etc. The difference wasn't just between kids who had seven evening meals a week with a parent compared with kids who had none. At almost every step from zero up to seven evening meals a week, each extra dinner a child had with a parent decreased the risk of both internalizing problems and externalizing problems and increased both prosocial behavior and the child's general satisfaction with life. The change was statistically significant at almost every step. For example, when you compare kids we have six dinners per week with a parent to kids who have five dinners per week with a parent, you find that kids who have six dinners a week enjoy significantly better well-being, demonstrate significantly more prosocial behavior, and have significantly fewer internalizing problems and significantly fewer externalizing problems compared with kids who have five dinners a week with a parent. That one extra meal with a parent, the difference between five evening meals a week together and six Evening meals a week together makes a difference.

The bottom line on family meals:

• A family in which kids often have meals with parents is likely to be a family in which parents still have authority; a family in which parents and family interaction still matter.
• But just insisting that everybody eat together, while the TV is blaring in the kids are texting at the dinner table, probably won't accomplish much by itself.

Ch4: Why Are American Students Falling Behind?

(JCM: America continues to drop in education stats versus other countries. Here are a variety of comments he makes on this.)

78-[perhaps] bad behavior of American kids is the price we pay for the greater creativity of young Americans. That's assuming that young Americans are more creative than young people in other countries. But is that assumption correct? (hint: he says no...)

84 - in 2012, America dropped to 17th in education in the world, below countries like Spain, portugal, and poland. 

You can't invoke the economy to explain these results. Between 2000 and 2012, Spain experienced a major economic meltdown worse than that of the United States. Poland, which trail far behind United States in 2000, moved far above the u.s. by 2012. Despite the fact that our per capita spending on education is more than twice what it is in Poland.

85-Americans waste an extraordinary amount of tax money on high tech toys for teachers and students, most of which have no proven learning value whatsoever.

The three main factors see sites are in over-investment in technology, over emphasis on sports, and a low selectivity in teacher training.

87-among adults 25 to 34 years of age, Americans have dropped to 15th place internationally in the proportion of young people that earn college degrees. We dropped from number one to number 15 in just 30 years.

88-American college students now spend less time studying than students in any European country with the sole exception of Slovakia.

Ch5: Why Are So Many Kids So Fragile?

100 - He noticed the following trend and gave examples:

In kids today, something inside seems to be missing: some inner strength that we took for granted in young people a few decades back but that just didn't develop in kids today.

The phenomenon of young, able-bodied adults not working and not looking for work is becoming much more common in the United States.

103-This phenomenon – young Americans who are fragile, give up easily, no longer have the drive to start new businesses – may have  huge economic consequences, but the causes do not live in economics. The causes live in American parenting, which now creates fragile kids.

104-[many kids] love their parents. But they are not seriously concerned with what their parents think.

If parents don't come first, then kids become fragile. Here's why. A good parent child relationship is robust and unconditional. My daughter might shout at me, "I hate you!" But she would know that her outburst is not going to change our relationship. My wife and I might choose to suspend some of her privilege privileges for a week if she were to have such an outburst, but she would know that we both still love her. That won't change and she knows it. Peer relationships, by contrast, Are fragile by nature. Emily and Melissa may be best friends, but both of them know that one wrong word might fracture the relationship beyond repair. In peer relations, everything is conditional and contingent.

105-The appropriate remedy for Julia [who is depressed]... is nto Risperdal, but rather the contruction of a different self concept - one rooted  no in estraordinary academic achievement, but in the unconditional love and acceptance that her parents are ready to offer her.

     Children and teenagers need unconditional love and acceptance today no less than they did 30 or 50 years ago. But they cannot get unconditional love and acceptance from their peers or from a report card

109-part of your job as a parent is to educate desire. To teach your child to go beyond "whatever floats your boat." To enjoy, and to want to enjoy, pleasures higher and deeper than video games and social media can provide. Those pleasures may be found perhaps in conversation with wise adults; or in meditation, prayer, or reflection; or in music, dance, or the arts.

111-some countries have traditions that help to maintain parent child bonds. In Holland, schools close at noon every Wednesday so that kids can enjoy some quality midweek time with their parents. In Geneva, Switzerland, the public elementary schools close for two hours at lunch, every day, so the kids can go home and eat lunch with a parent. Many Swiss employers accommodate that tradition by giving their employees 2 1/2 hours off for lunch, so that a parent can be at home with the child for that meal.

(JCM: can this really be true? I can't imagine this every happening in America, but LOVE the idea).

PART TWO: SOLUTIONS

CH6: WHAT MATTERS?

117-best predictor of happiness and overall life satisfaction for an 11-year old 20 years later: SELF-CONTROL.

118-Five dimensions of personality: Conscientiousness, Openness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Emotional Stability.

119-Intelligence does not predict happiness or unhappiness. 

119-you might reasonably wonder whether any of the big five traits (listed from p.118 above) could predict happiness and wealth and life satisfaction. Only one does: Conscientiousness. Individuals who are more Conscientious earn and save more money, even after researchers adjust for intelligence, race, ethnicity, and education. Individuals who are more conscientious are also significantly happier than individuals who are less conscientious, and they are substantially more satisfied with their lives. Other studies of shown that conscientiousness predicts better health and longer life. People who are more conscientious are less likely to become obese. They're less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease. They're more likely to live longer and happier lives, and as noted above, more likely to be satisfied with their lives.

121-In short, many parents have come to assume the good grades and test scores are the best measure of achievement and the most reliable key to future happiness. But they are mistaken. If you want your child to be healthy and wealthy and wise, then your first priority should not be measures of cognitive achievement, such as high grades or test scores, but measures of conscientiousness, such as honesty, integrity, and self-control.

124-In my own medical practice, I have personally witnessed a child change from impulsive and out of control to self controlled within a matter of weeks – without medication. All it takes is for the parents seriously to implement a simple program that build self control.

(JCM: This next concept provides a good nuance to a commonly held approach to child character development.)

126-7: Never tell your child that he or she is smart (identity); instead, praise him or her for working hard (behavior); Sax notes that this works well for developing cognitive skills.... But teaching virtues of Conscientiousness may be different.... When it comes to teaching virtue, identity seems to work better than behavior.... Saying, "Don't be a cheater" (identity), is a more effective instruction than saying, "don't cheat" (behavior). Apparently kids are more comfortable Cheating if they don't see themselves as cheaters.

128-In reality, behavior influences identity and eventually becomes identity. If you cheat, over and over, you are – or will soon become – a cheater. your actions will, over time, change your character. Parents used to teach these moral fundamentals, but many no longer do.

132-If you compel children to act more virtuously, they actually become more virtuous. (Proverbs... 'train up a child')

133-The Western tradition in parenting is to inculcate virtuous habits into children. Again, this goes way back. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle wrote that a person become virtuous by doing virtuous acts. Behavior becomes identity.... "We  are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act but a habit." "Teach them diligently..." - the Hebrew... "to inscribe them on your children." - i.e. "to cut with a knife."... You teach virtue by requiring children to behave virtuously. In other words, you ask them to pretend that they are virtuous before they really are. (Julie noted that so much of childhood is pretending already.)

135-the 21st-century assumption implicit in many aspects of our society, such as the national school lunch program (see previous pages for a fascinating story on this)– is that if you give kids (JCM: or adults for that matter) the choice between right and wrong and show them why they should make the right choice, then that is the choice that will make. This assumption is not based on evidence. It's based on a 21st century guess about human nature.

CH7: MISCONCEPTIONS

140-study show that, in general, well behaved kids are more likely to grow up to be well behaved adults.

142-parents need to be both strict and loving

143-virtue begets virtue. vice begets vice.

144-meg Meeker told her son Walter, "no video games. No video game devices. You're not wasting your time on that." Walter complained. "All the other boys are playing call of duty. I'm the only one who is an allowed to play. " Mom said, "too bad." When Walter turned 18 he said "I'm an adult now. I have Money that I have earned from my job. I'm going to go and buy a PS3 and some video games like call of duty." Mom said, "fine." One year later, near the end of his freshman year at the University of Dayton, Walter called his mom. "I just made $400!" He told his mom. "Guess how I did it?" Mom said, "no idea." "I sold my PS3 and all my video games. They were just gathering dust anyhow," Walter said. He explained that he saw so many other guys at college who had started playing these games many hours a week at 10 or 12 or 14 years of age. These boys defined themselves as gamers. Their sense of self was tied up with their proficiency at playing video games. They expected Walter to be impressed by their video game skills. But Walter was not impressed. He had a different perspective. During this crucial adolescent years when he was not allowed to play video games, he had developed a wide array of hobbies and interest, as well as people skills, which the gamers were less likely to have. He observed that the gamers were often clumsy in real life Social Situations.

145-age matters. If a boy starts playing video games when he was nine or 12 or 14 years old, those games may "imprint" on his brain in a way that they won't if he starts playing at 18. Before puberty is complete, the brain is a enormously plastic, as discussed in chapter 1. That's both good and bad. The plasticity of the brain before and during puberty allows it to change in fundamental ways as circumstances require. But the areas of the brain responsible for judgment and perspective arent mature.  once the process of puberty is fully complete – once the boy becomes a man or the girl becomes a woman – the areas of the brain responsible for anticipating consequences and thinking ahead are stronger.

145- Research suggests the kids have spent many hours a week playing violent video games such as Grand theft auto and call of duty become more hostile, less honest, and last kind. Not right away, not after a week or month, but after years of playing these violent games.

151-Pleasure is not the same thing as happiness. Don't confuse the two.

152-Part of the task of the parent is, and always has been, educating desire: teaching your child to desire and enjoy things that are higher and better than cotton candy.

153-The solution is mindfully to create an alternative culture. To build a subversive household in which the dinner table conversation is actually conversation, with the screens switched off. The value family time together above the time the kids spend with same age peers. To create a space for silence, for meditation, for reflection, so that your child can discover a true inner self that is more than the mere gratification of impulse.

158-If you are doing your job as a parent, then sometimes you will have to do things that will upset your child. If you are concerned that your child won't love you anymore, that concern me keep you from doing your job. Do your job.

CH8: THE FIRST THING: TEACH HUMILITY

159-Teach humility.... "humility simply means being as interested in other people as you are in yourself." (JCM: I've heard it as, 'interesting people are interested people.')

164-As you mature into adulthood... you realize that the world is, and should be, bigger than you. It's not about you. and once you realize and accept that, gratefully, you can breathe a sigh of relief. 

165-require your kids to do chores.

what does this teach them?... that...

169-"The world doesn't revolve around you. You are a member of this family with obligations to this family, and those obligations are paramount."

CH9: THE SECOND THING: ENJOY

182-The unintended message is that relaxed time together as a family is the lowest priority of all.

183-Outside North America, it's unusual to find adults who boast about how busy they are and how little sleep they get. 

184-by cramming a child' life full of activities,.. mom is sending an unintended message: what you do is more important than who you are...[we need to] do less and become more.

CH10: THE THIRD THING: THE MEANING OF LIFE

189- The primary purpose of education should be to prepare for life, not for more school.

190-If you are working 80 hours a week at a job with shrivels your soul, then you are a slave. I don't care whether you are earning $600,000 a year or more. Life is precious. Each minute is a priceless gift. No amount of money can reclaim lost time.

191-Empower your daughter or your son to take risks and congratulate them not only when they succeed but also when they fail, because failure builds humility... Steve Jobs said something similar in his 2005 commencement speech at Stanford: "I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could've ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about  everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life."

198-The most serious consequence of the shift from a parent oriented culture to a peer oriented culture is that parents no longer are able to provide that big picture to their children. A peer oriented society has turned K-12 education into a "race to nowhere,"... but they have no idea why.

204-We are experimenting on children in a way that has no precedent, with medications whose long-term risks are largely unknown.