2006-08-12 Take the Kid Gloves Off - Spark

"Where the one-random-winner scenario of my youth reflects the assumption that childhood is a preparation for the "real" world, a time that necessarily involves dissappointment as well as joy,the "everybody wins" model of today suggests modern parenting is characterised by a strong desire to insulate children from all negative feelings." "...because the child's parents want the child's limited tiome at home to be perfect, they do whatever they can to prevent difficulties and situations that might lead to the child feeling upset, angry or excluded. As families grow smaller, and more womnen have no children at all, there are simply fewer around. This gives children what sociologists call and increased "scarcity value", making them, ostensibly at least, more precious." "Parents increasingly identify the world outside the home as one from which their children must be sheilded and inrealtion to which they must devise strategies of risk reduction." "This concern, arguably, is linked to the popularisation of psychoanalytic ideas about the significantce of childhood experience to adult life.." "... our society strongly associates happiness with "winning". In a social context in which individual acheivement is everything, no child is allowed to "bad" or to lose at anything..." "...more of our children and youth suffer what they call complex diseases, "particularly psychological problems such as depression/ anxiety, suicide and eating disorders". Many behavioural and social problems, including aggressive crime are also increasing. Ironically, the reasons for this may lie in the very parenting practices designed to protect them." "Part of improving our children's long term health may lie in resisting the view that they are too fragile to cope with the more difficult or negative aspects of life." "...we live in a strongly individualistic society in which competition and maximising one's own positive outcomes are valued more highly than co-operation and collaboration. Yet, as economics professor Richard Layard points out in Children of the Lucky Country ?, the obligation to make the most of one's self is felt by many to be a "terrifying and lonely objective". Dr. Ceridwen Spark, Monash University Researcher, The Age 2006-08-12 Take the Kid Gloves Off