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Many overschedule and overload children, say authors of 'Hyper-Parenting'
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| By Sandi Kahn Shelton, Register Staff |
April 02, 2000 |
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If you think childhood hasn't become more intense these days, consider this: |
• A full-time working couple offers their nanny a $500 bonus every time their newborn son meets a developmental milestone ahead of schedule. If he manages to sit up before the age of 6 months — cha-CHING! The nanny reaps the reward.
• The parents of a seventh-grader meet with a psychiatrist for advice on how they can instill the "killer instinct" in their easygoing son, so that he can succeed in the cutthroat world of business when he's grown.
• Every Tuesday, a 7-year-old girl has a 7:30 a.m. piano lesson, followed by school until 3 p.m., then gymnastics from 4-6:30. Other days, horseback riding lessons, choir practice, ballet and religious studies fill her after-school hours. Her mother admits that her daughter is worn out, but shrugs and says, "Kids today are so much busier than we used to be. I'm not really sure it's a good thing, but I want to give her the advantages I didn't have."
| BOOKTALK | | Want to discuss hyper-parenting and meet Nicole Wise, co-author of "Hyper-Parenting"? She'll be at R.J. Julia Booksellers in Madison at 7 p.m. on April 10 to talk and sign copies of her new book. |
Think these examples are extreme? Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld, a child psychiatrist, and Nicole Wise, a journalist mom, say that these kinds of situations are practically epidemic among American families today, particularly in the affluent upper- and middle-class suburbs in the Northeast.
That's why they teamed up to write "Hyper-Parenting: Are You Hurting Your Child by Trying Too Hard?" $22.95, St. Martin's Press.
They say, although the parents who create these kinds of childhoods for their offspring are loving parents, simply trying to give their kids the best possible experiences, instead they're creating a society of over-stressed, highly pressured kids who often end up feeling lost, inadequate, and as though they can never measure up to their parents and society's expectations.
"There's a lot of guilt in parenting today," says Wise, a Stamford mother of four children, ages 15-6. "There is this sense that if you do everything 'right,' it will be guaranteed to turn out right. We turn to the media, to so-called experts, because we no longer feel we can trust ourselves. Instead of finding out just who our kids really are and what they need, we end up pressuring them to be all they can possibly be, to live up to every potential."
Shana Gleeson, a freshman at North Haven High School, says she sees kids every day who feel overloaded because of pressure from their parents to get into the best colleges, be the best athlete, star in the school play and edit the school paper.
"They end up just wanting to escape and go somewhere where they're not being watched and controlled," she says. "I think parents THINK they're helping their kids, but I don't think they realize what they're really communicating to their teen. Kids feel smothered."
Rosenfeld of Stamford, who has a busy private practice in child psychiatry and is the father of four kids, ages 13-7, says he wanted to write this book specifically to tell parents they don't have to try so hard. Kids benefit from unstructured time in which to daydream, create and think about their own values. What's more, suffering though a little boredom might actually be a good thing.
"In the old days," he says, "everything was more on the pass/fail system. A kid whose job was to bring in the eggs knew right away whether he'd done a decent job or not. If all the eggs were picked up, then he passed. Now, nobody knows what a good kid really is anymore.
"We're all judging and being judged. Parents, too, are no longer doing enough just to provide food, shelter, education. Parenting has become the most competitive adult sport there is. If the guy down the block is doing a little better — if his kid is smarter or does better at soccer — then you didn't win."
Maria Amendola of North Haven knows just what this pressure is like, and as a mother of four, she works hard to keep it from infecting her own home life. "My kids love to play ball in the yard with their friends," she says.
"And people are always asking me why I don't sign them up in the leagues. But the truth is, they're getting what they need playing in the neighborhood. They're structuring their own time, learning to get along with other children, not playing when they don't feel like it.
"No adult is running their lives, telling them how and when to play. I think that kind of experience is what kids need to learn to trust themselves."
What caused us to get into this parenting crunch in the first place? Wise and Rosenfeld quickly point out that parents who do this really do care deeply for their children and aren't trying to ignore their needs.
"It's just that we're such a can-do people, and there is so much expert advice out there," says Wise. "We're doing a constant appraisal and evaluation of every aspect of our children's performance. Adults have over-organized childhood."
Rosenfeld says we've been seduced into believing we can control every aspect of our children's lives. "It's the dominant way of raising kids in America, to see parenting as a job we can do badly, rather than simply a relationship with another human being.
"We've begun to believe that it is possessions and activities that make a good life. And if we have the money and resources to make sure our kids get every advantage, can take every class, then it's very hard to resist, to say no. We don't want to feel we're not doing the very best we can, especially if we see other people who are doing just that."
Diane Gleeson, a school social worker in North Haven and the widowed mother of three children, including Shana, the 14-year-old above, says her family situation necessitated deciding early on what was important and what wasn't.
"When my husband died suddenly when the children were small, my main priority was being able to stay close to my kids. I decided they didn't need all the lessons and other things that other kids might have; they needed me with them, instead of off working too hard to pay for those things.
"We found money for the things that really mattered, but the most important thing is that my kids get a solid sense of who they are. I think it was good for me that I had to sit down and think all that out ahead of time, to be clear about what I valued."
That kind of values-thinking is exactly what so many parents don't take the time to do, according to Wise and Rosenfeld. "It's the hard part of parenting, to think of what you really stand for," says Rosenfeld.
"It's much easier to just keep running around, filling the hours with lessons and games. But when you stop and sit down and ask your kids what they'd really like to do, how they'd really like to fill their time, you might be surprised at the answer.
"My kids always say they just want to play Monopoly with me. When we play a game together, I'm just with them, not valuing them for anything that they achieve or perform. That's what parenthood is all about."
Even if parents don't recognize what they're doing as hyper-parenting, nearly every kid knows the symptoms — even at very early ages. Beth-Ann Gleeson, 11, says kids at school often talk about how many activities their parents want them to do. "Some kids have to do two sports at a time, and then their parents still get mad at them if they get a bad grade," she says.
"One boy said he likes playing soccer, but he doesn't want to do it every day, like his parents want him to. He doesn't want to tell his parents because he wants them to be happy with him."
Kids, says Beth-Ann with a sigh, just need time to hang out. "If I have a free day, I might want a friend to come over, and we'd just talk or take a walk or do stuff like that. Sometimes I just like to be alone and sit and think and not have to do anything."
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