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It Takes a
Parent, Not a Pushover
How the Culture of Pushover Parenting is Hurting Our
Kids – and What to Do About It
By Betsy Hart
Book review by Nancy Taylor
“Somebody needs a nap!”
Sound familiar?
Put the words ‘raising great kids’ into Amazon.com
and you find quite a number of resources. Ask many
parents or parenting experts, and they will likely
tell you making sure your child feels good about
himself, has high self esteem, and is treated
positively and with respect will ensure the
happiest, healthiest adults. Sounds great, and many
people strive to do just that. The problem is that
may just not be the best way to raise kids. Maybe by
allowing our children too many choices and giving
them too much latitude, we are actually creating
people who are growing up to be unhappy,
self-absorbed and incapable of maintaining
relationships. Perhaps we should be raising them
more like our parents raised us; making sure they
understand that they simply will not have everything
they want in this life, some people will have power
over them and they will often have no choice but to
put the needs of others first. In her latest book,
nationally syndicated columnist Betsy Hart helps
parents mire through the advice of experts to figure
out how best to attack the problem of parenting in a
society where human nature remains the same, but the
rules have changed, standards have loosened, and a
vast number of families are relying less on
religious influence to raise their kids.
Time and time again in the book, Hart says ‘this is
more a book about parents than kids.’ She admits
that there are ways in which her own children are
over-indulged and understands very well how that can
happen. Popular opinion is that we should allow
children latitude, they must be given the
opportunity to make their own decisions and that
anything less will paralyze them. We live in a
society where there is a fair amount of parental
guilt about the amount of time we do not spend with
our children, and we make the trade of ‘quality
time’ over ‘quantity time.’ Some parents, in an
effort to compensate for their time away from their
kids overindulge them materially, but many are
simply so paralyzed by the fear of what putting
their foot down will do to little Junior’s psyche
that they cannot bring themselves to be
disciplinarians at all. How many times have we
witnessed a child behaving like a spoiled brat, only
to hear the parents excuse his behavior as being
because their child is ‘tired?’ Have we done that
ourselves?
It Takes a Parent is Betsy Hart’s best effort to
help parents to see how much our culture of
indulgent parenting is hurting our kids. She cites
statistical data that supports that in spite of our
‘enlightened’ way of thinking, kids have more
problems at a younger age than ever before. Schools
are seeing violent behavior starting as early as
kindergarten, and alternative schools for
non-compliant elementary schools are becoming more
and more commonplace. 1,000 school districts
nationwide have this type of alternative education,
up from zero just a decade ago. Depression, suicide
and learning disorders like ADD/ADHD are on the
rise. While Hart admits that some of the increases
are due to better reporting and diagnosing, many can
be attributed to kids being more troubled today than
ever before.
So, can we take back control of our children and
families to help our kids grow up to be happy and
healthy? Or are we trapped in the culture we are in
without any way to regain what we have lost? Hart’s
enlightening book is a helpful tool for parents who
can see the need for a change in our child-rearing
strategies, but are unsure how to attack the
problem. Chapters like ‘Kids Gone Wild,’ ‘It’s All
About Me – Not!,’ “Our Children, Our Idols’ and
‘Challenge the Experts For the Sake of Your Child’
give parents the tools, and the courage, to oppose
the prevailing ‘wisdom’ and raise kids in a more
traditional way.
Betsy Hart is a nationally syndicated columnist
whose weekly column “From the Hart” offers practical
views on cultural, family and political issues and
is distributed to newspapers nationwide. Her book;
It Takes a Parent is available in bookstores
nationwide, online booksellers or at
www.penguin.com.
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