I almost missed it during my low-tech summer, but even I couldn’t ignore the hubbub last month surrounding Madeline Levine’s viral parenting article in the New York Times.
In “Raising Successful Children,” Levine, a veteran psychologist, clinician, and educator, addresses a question I suspect many of us ask ourselves: we know that “helicopter” parenting isn’t ideal, but wonder, as Levine puts it, “Is there really anything wrong with a kind of ‘overparenting lite’?”
According to Levine, there is. The danger even in this kinder, gentler helicoptering is that we undermine our kids’ motivation. She writes, “The happiest, most successful children have parents who do not do for them what they are capable of doing, or almost capable of doing.” A mother of three herself, she admits how hard it is not to swoop in when we see our kids struggling, but cautions that when we do so too quickly, we are often meeting our own needs rather than those of our kids. Even worse, we are depriving them of the chance to experience the “successful failures” that are necessary for them to develop resilience and a sense of self.
Dr. Levine expands on these ideas in her latest book, Teach Your Children Well, published earlier this summer and now a New York Times bestseller. Teach Your Children Well is really four books in one: an indictment of America’s overwrought parenting culture that exhuasts the most traditionally academically talented and ignores the passions of the rest; an overview of essential skills school age kids develop at each stage; a look at how to teach our kids to find solutions, take action, and develop coping skills; and a call to arms for parents to challenge our broken system and start living the values we really care about.
I really enjoyed Teach Your Children Well. Levine’s tone is friendly and not overly didactic. She sounds like both a good mom and the kind of friend it would be fun to kvetch about kids and life with over coffee. As a parent of young kids and a former teacher, I loved her breakdown of what social, emotional, and interpersonal milestones kids develop during each stage of their school years. Given that my oldest just turned five and will start elementary school next year, I felt like I was seeing a preview of what peaks and valleys we will experience in the coming years.
But the greatest contribution of the book, I think, is Levine’s attack on contemporary parenting culture. Resting her argument on decades of research, she demonstrates how we’ve created for our children a narrow definition of success and a world where some kids burn themselves out trying to reach a highly unlikely target while others feel like their talents are valueless.
Teach Your Children Well was a definite wake-up call for me: even though my kids still aren’t in school, I have participated in this culture as a teacher at two elite New England prep schools. While reading the book, I thought about the absurd amount of homework I used to assign, the exceptions I made to allow middling students into my AP courses when I knew they couldn’t keep up with the demanding pace, the hours of extra help I gave to kids at their parents’ request so that they could avoid the indignity of a B or, much worse, a C, the time I spent coaching girls who were required to play an interscholastic sport even though their real talents lie in the dance studio or on the stage. I saw kids literally make themselves sick – or, worse, abuse substances to get an edge or ease the stress – trying to keep up with the expectations that their parents and we teachers set for them. I helped create and prop up a culture that taught that high grades and athletic achievement are more desirable than genuine understanding, curiosity, and good health, as long as they culminated in that fat college envelope.
In Teach Your Children Well, Levine has made me question the very system I was a part of and reminded me that the more of us who opt out – who say no to outlandish amounts of homework, extracurricular activities, prep courses, tutoring, and non-stop testing and who band together to exert a different kind of peer pressure – the easier it will be for our kids “to lead satisfying, meaningful, and authentically successful lives.”
So, who’s with me?
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Harper/Harper Collins is offering a free copy of Teach Your Children Well to one lucky Motherese reader. Leave a comment below to be entered to win!*
Updated to add (9/17/12): Congratulations to Margot, the winner of a copy of Teach Your Children Well! The giveaway is now closed.
Disclosure: Harper/HarperCollins provided me with a review copy of Teach Your Children Well. The opinions I share about the book are my own. Harper/HarperCollins did not tell me what to say or how to say it.
* No purchase is necessary. Value of prize is US $26.99. Odds of winning are based on the number of entries. Entries will be accepted from 6:00 a.m. ET on September 10, 2012 to 5:59 a.m. ET on September 17, 2012. Winner will be notified by e-mail. Only one entry per person. U.S. and Canadian residents are eligible to enter.
{ 32 comments… read them below or add one }
I enjoyed the book also! I do think it gets crazy with all of the private schools–a lot of people we know even send their kids to private kindergartens?
I need to add this book to my growing stack on my night stand!
Last year, third grade was tough for me and my kid. Some nights there were 2 or more hours of HW. It took me awhile to finally convince myself that it was only third grade, for the love of Pete, and I finally stopped fretting so much and putting so much pressure on my kid. This year has started off better since I am already in that mindset (though it helps that my kid has had HW only one or two nights a week since school started). It also helps that my kid is more responsible than she was last year.
As for extra-curricular activities, I have always been a slacker parent there, mostly b/c my kid just does not want to do anything organized/team-related. While I am working only sporadically, we swim and go to the park for our physical activity, and we are both better for it. I admit, I do worry down the line that my kid will suffer because she is not in a team sport. But I will cross that bridge when I come to it.
I will have to check out the book. Thanks!
Oh, this sounds great! (and while I did not have a low-tech summer, per se, I must have missed that article – can I continue to blame early pregnancy??) Thanks for the chance to win!
I’m in the middle of reading it myself. I find myself saying – yes, yes – a lot. And then struggling to figure out how to put it into action. I love the notion of scaffolding our kids, helping them reach a little farther then they could on their own, but pressure for perfection, and pushing our kids is so accepted it’s part of the terrain.
I don’t believe in homework at this age – second grade- but if I don’t give my child the time to do it, I know she’ll pay the price. This year is the first time I’ve felt she can do it in her own, so it’s less horrible.
And then there are the activities. It’s hard to keep a balance view. But I know she needs time to play – alone and with friends – without any structure. I will forever fight for childhood.
I started this book last night! I’m glad to know that you liked. I was glad to read in the introduction that Levine will not shy away from concrete advice and look forward to getting into the meat of the book.
I too enjoyed the article in the New Yorker this summer (especially the phrase “snowplow parent” if it’s the same article I’m thinking of). I have not picked up the book yet, but it sounds worthwhile. There was also recently a review of another book that sounded good (sadly my brain has ejected any useful information like title or author) in the NY Times Review of Books about how kids in this demographic you allude to here don’t ever get a chance to fail, and kids in poverty or other high-stress home environments get nothing but failure, and that what kids need is a chance to fail and overcome failure to achieve success.
I read that review too! At least I think I did. (I, like you, my friend, am better at recalling general gist than author or title.)
Could the book you mention be How Children Succeed by Paul Tough? Here’s a link to the review: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/books/review/how-children-succeed-by-paul-tough.html?_r=1&n=Top%2fFeatures%2fBooks%2fBook%20Reviews&pagewanted=all
It sounds like the one you’re talking about – and gotta love that author’s name!
Ah, yes, this is the time of the year when parents start emailing each other, comparing the kids’ after-school schedules. “My kid has Ballet and Scouts and Hebrew School, but she really wants Gymnastics too, so I am going to enroll her even though I can’t really afford it.” It’s nutty. I have to remind myself, again and again, that this is not something I should choose for my child. In fact, my responsibility is to step back and let her be.
You bring up another great point, Mel, that Levine doesn’t really touch on: how many parents are bankrupting themselves paying for lessons and teams and equipment and tutoring and prep courses just to try to keep up with the other parents?
This seems like something I need to read! As someone who was “traditionally academically talented” myself, I wonder how I would react to children whose talents lie elsewhere; I think I’d need some guidance on how best to nurture and encourage.
Thanks so much for sharing information about this book. As a parent and social worker, these themes are ones that I struggle with personally and professionally. It is such a challenge for me to convince parents (friends, family, colleagues) about the importance of emphasizing social-emotional health in our schools…and in our lives! And once I can get there, it’s even more of a challenge to facilitate reflection about what it looks like to be supporting our kids success (such as sometimes standing by and watching them try and maybe fail). It is so so difficult to live these values sometimes- especially when the people and systems around us are pushing in the opposite direction. It is so helpful to read this and the comments- to see that there is a community of people out there who also think this is all a little…wacky. Kristen, I am so very with you….
I had one of those “standing by and watching them try and maybe fail” moments this morning with my three year old. He was getting ready for preschool and was really, really struggling to get himself dressed. We were running late and it was all I could do not to guide his little head and arms through his shirt and yank up his pants (not to mention the socks; oh, the socks!) so we could rush out the door. But I stopped myself and let him slowly wiggle his way in. We were a minute late, but he did manage to do it by himself and the pride in his eyes made it all worth it.
Baby steps, I guess.
Good for Levine. She’s following the trail blazed by A.S. Neill, John Holt, John Taylor Gatto, Alfie Kohn, and many others. I had so much traditional school myself I wanted to give my kid a break. Turns out he’s someone who benefits from structure–you can’t know that in advance. As in all things, balance. And down with standardized testing.
I’m going to put this book on my to-read list and check it out for myself. I think not only parents are to blame but also the school system, which does a great job at hindering innovation and individuality. Kids feel pressured to be good at everything and do the same extra-curricular activities as the other kids. Peer pressure is ridicously high in this country, and it applies to parents too! I can’t believe how many parents constantly want to compare their kids to other kids about developmental milestones, reading levels, academic performance, etc. This unhealthy competition really has to stop.
Innovation and creativity! Yes!
Levine addresses this issue really well. Among other passages, she writes, “Whether you believe America is falling behind in academic achievement or that what we do best – create and innovate – can’t be measured by standardized testing, the fact remains that we are tolerating, even advancing, a paradigm that is substantially at odds with what we know about healthy child development, enthusiasm for learning, and real-world success.”
I can’t remember now if it was in this book or elsewhere where the author wondered why, in a land that leads the world in new patents and Nobel Prizes, we are so focused on standardized tests that have no way of measuring innovation. It just doesn’t make sense to me.
I was just talking to a friend of mine recently who is an unschooler. This means she doesn’t have an agenda for her child AT ALL. Including bedtimes. She has a child right now who is living a 27 hour clock – meaning sometimes that child is awake at night.
Talking with her and her complete lack of agenda for her children opened my eyes on the many agendas I have for my kids. I could never take her route, but it allowed me to profoundly question my own.
Sounds like this book comes at a similar subject from a different vantage point.
Amen, sister! I bought Levine’s book this summer, but it’s preaching to the choir, so I set it on the back burner for now. Is she O’Neill-Holt-Gatto-Kohn light? Or is she able to provide workable solutions within the current system? (The former want to opt out of the system – not a choice for many.) Who wants to fight the fight locally with me? I ask as my four-year-old is at swim team practice(!)…
I don’t think Levine is calling for an opt out. Instead, I’d say that she wants parents to step up in three ways: 1. create a home environment where our kids’ interests and abilities are celebrated even if they are not the types of interests and abilities that will set them on a direct path to Harvard; 2. work with the schools, but question things like untenable amounts of homework and test prep and make sure that art, music, recess, and gym stay in the curriculum; and 3. team up with other parents to exert positive peer pressure in order to create communities – or at least pockets within them – more amenable to kids actually getting to have a childhood.
I just bought this book today. I am happy to read your review and am s0 glad that there appears to be some practical suggestions for my parenting concerns.
Oh, I need to read this book. I was just having a conversation about helicopter parents with a friend of mine after reading a magazine article about a woman struggling not to overparent her newly college bound child.
I’m with you for sure, as for the endless stream of parenting advice… I think in the end we’re all going to do what we’ve always done: our best. XO
I just moved my children from private school into public. Part of it was done because trying to cover multiple children for the past ten thousand years has been bleeding me dry.
I loved the education they received and part of me misses it but I don’t miss the tuition and some of the craziness from other parents.
That is not to say that every public school parent is better because many aren’t but I was much more aware of the ridiculous efforts people put into making little Johnny into a superstar.
Except they kept crippling him by doing everything for him and or complaining if he wasn’t given special treatment. Last year I complained multiple times about the amount of homework my 5th grader received.
It was hours and it happened not because of the curriculum but because some parents were driving their children to be number one and they felt all that extra work would help do that.
What they didn’t seem to focus on was whether the kids were being taught how to think for themselves and apply the knowledge they had gained. It is easy to regurgitate information, but I want to see practical application.
Anyhoo, I could go on a three hour rant about this. I don’t care if my kid is number one in class. I want them to learn the material and be able to get along with others. Some of these parents spend all day telling Johnny and Sally they deserve special treatment and their kids now respond accordingly.
I wonder what they will do in the real world when they discover their boss doesn’t care.
To all of that – and the last line especially – I say, “Amen!”
I taught before I became a parent. There are memories that make me cringe- and some I am still very proud of to this day… I was also an office manager before that to a group of early 20-somethings. Their sense of entitlement disturbed me, as did the fact that their parents still involved themselves in their jobs. I will never forget when a woman’s mother called in for her to tell me that she was sick with a cold and wasn’t coming to work. —–Oh I don’t want to be that parent either. Nice review- sounds like this book could give me much to chew on.
I recently heard an NPR piece about the involvement of parents in their recent college graduates’ job hunts and I was completely shocked. One mother even went into the interview room with her son. Quite a bizarre new trend!
Having witnessed (and participated in?) the massive pressure on both my sons – particularly in late middle school-throughout high school, you get no argument from me.
We must start reconsidering our approach to education, our views of “success” which are not only too narrow for our children but not helpful to our society for so many reasons, and take a more moderate, common sense approach.
You know, I was thinking about this today (yeah, I know, what else do I do. :-) Not to be too creepy, but your experience at the Prep School reminded me of the movie Stepford Wives, and how some people seem to want a robot and not a human being for a kid. Luckily, being broke and on the Edge of the Empire up here, there is no way my kids could get into a fancy, private US college, so some of the pressure is automatically off. But it is still there to some extent.
Thanks for a thoughtful read. Cheers!
I’m totally with you!
I just finished a mindless fiction, and I think I’m ready to dive into this parenting book, although I generally stay away from them. However, you’ve never steered us wrong, and it has been awhile since I’ve read something that is more in line with my own philosophy.
I came from a culture where academic excellence is *everything* and I remember hours of my childhood with a tutor outside of school, and while I think it’s important that my daughters value their education, I refuse to make them go through what I did.
Here’s to redefining success, and all the work that goes with it. I’m going to start with this book :)
I’m glad there’s a conversation going on nationally about finding balance in parenting. I’m a bit of a helicopter parent, not because I schedule my kids or do things for them, but because I pay very close attention to what they do and whom they do it with. I watch far too many kids whose parents aren’t in earshot being cruel to other kids. I hear far too many kids complain that they don’t get enough time with their parents.
We are lucky to have an intensely shy eldest who doesn’t want to be enrolled in classes of any sort, so it never even occurs to me to attempt structured activities. Afterschool time is spent either hiking, playing with friends, or in free time around the house and yard. My kids are pretty good at finding things they like doing, asking for help if they need it, and creating what they need to enjoy a project.
Hopefully Levine’s book will give me some strategies to let the little stuff go, and to foster my sons’ interest in the things that engage them.
I’m very interested in this book. My oldest is almost 4 and I already feel the pull to enroll her in classes ‘for the experience’. We’ve held off for financial reasons as well as time constraints. We both work full time and the last thing we really want is to come home, grab a kid and run to another activity for the few hours a day that we get to spend together. If my kids show the interest, I’m sure I’ll go down that path, but I’m really hoping I can let them lead.
Excellent review. I was thrilled to see that by entering today I could win a copy, but who can wait that long? I have to read more.
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