The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids

Our children cannot be assumed to follow in our footsteps, assuage our losses, or compensate for our inadequacies.

We need to always deal with the child in front of us, not the child of our fantasies.

Intrusion and support are two fundamentally different processes: support is about the needs of the child, intrusion is about the needs of the parent. This

Working primarily to please others and to gain their approval takes time and energy away from children’s real job of figuring out their authentic talents, skills, and interests.

the development of a sense of self.

While most research has focused on the value of maternal warmth, there is a growing body of evidence indicating that the warmth and acceptance shown by fathers, who are generally less involved in daily childcare, make a significant contribution to their children’s (especially their teenagers’) well-being. Feeling accepted by Dad appears to be particularly important when it comes to grades and conduct.7 This may be because a child has fewer interactions with Dad, so that each one takes on a heightened meaning, or because father’s approval tends to be more conditional, depending on how well the adolescent has performed. In any event, a father’s warmth and acceptance are strong predictors of academic success, social competence, and a low incidence of conduct problems in adolescence.

The fact that the stakes are higher is all the more reason to provide teenagers with as many opportunities as possible to make their own decisions and learn from the consequences. Just as it was critical for the toddler to fumble with her shoelaces before mastering the art of shoelace tying, so is it critical for the adolescent to fumble with difficult tasks and choices in order to master the art of making independent, healthy, moral decisions that can be called upon in the absence of parents’ directives. We all want our children to put their best foot forward. But in childhood and adolescence, sometimes the best foot is the one that is stumbled on, providing an opportunity for the child to learn how to regain balance, and right himself.

the basis of all true learning.

Children need work experiences to develop a sense that success is a function of their own efforts.

When a subculture is heading in the wrong direction, it is up to the adults of the larger culture to steer it back in the right direction.

Perhaps the single most important ritual a family can observe is having dinner together.

there is an inverse relationship between income and closeness to parents.

It is when a parent’s love is experienced as conditional on achievement that children are at risk for serious emotional problems.

Powersnoop,” as one of my wry young patients calls it,

It is now clear, however, that children of privilege are exhibiting unexpectedly high rates of emotional problems beginning in junior high school and accelerating throughout adolescence.

advantages, they experience among the highest rates of depression, substance abuse, anxiety disorders, somatic complaints, and unhappiness of any group of children in this country.

Researchers, led by Dr. Suniya Luthar of Columbia University’s Teachers College, have found that America has a new group of “at-risk” kids, or, more accurately, a previously unrecognized and unstudied group of at-risk kids. They defy the stereotypes commonly associated with the term “at-risk.” They are not inner-city kids growing up in harsh and unforgiving circumstances. They do not have empty refrigerators in their kitchens, roaches in their homes, metal detectors in their schools, or killings in their neighborhoods. America’s newly identified at-risk group is preteens and teens from affluent, well-educated families. In spite of their economic and social

When we protect our children from excessive control, outsized competition, and persistent academic pressure, and choose instead to commit to nurturing them with warmth, clear limits, firm consequences, and a delight in their potential and uniqueness, then our children are free to return to their essential task—the development of a sense of self, sufficiently robust to weather the inevitable ups and downs of a lifetime.

Adolescents need tremendous support as they go about the task of figuring out their identities, their future selves. Too often what they get is intrusion. Intrusion and support are two fundamentally different processes: support is about the needs of the child, intrusion is about the needs of the parent.

outgrowth of materialism is the notion that there are “winners” and “losers,” the “haves” and the “have-nots.” Parents need to check in with themselves regularly and avoid endorsing values that pit children against each other or suggest that resources are so scarce that children must be in constant competition.