Is modern life leaving children overindulged, overstimulated and underparented?
This is an article taken and adapted from Lucy Cavendish.
My friend looked harassed. “I’ve been in Tokyo on business,” she explained. “I was only there for four days but Archie was so upset that I promised I’d buy him a PlayStation 3. Now I’ve got to find him some games.” Archie is six.
The next day I was at a Sunday lunch with friends and their children. It was all pretty relaxed, but halfway through lunch I realized something was missing. The children were almost completely silent.
Most of them playing PSPs (PlayStation Portables) or watching DVDs on portable players. As we talked, I noticed the host’s three-year-old under the table, playing on his own PSP.
When his mother asked him what he was doing, he pulled a face and told her to “shut up”.
We are breeding a generation Frankenkinder. Coined in the United States, the term refers to the children of the financially rich but time-poor.
This generation of parents is trying to buy its children off, doing backflips so as not to disappoint them.
But whatever parents give, it’s never enough and the children they are raising are turning into monsters.
It’s little wonder, then, that according to a Cambridge University report published recently, classroom discipline is deteriorating because parents are overindulging their children.
The study reveals that exposure to television, video games and computers is damaging children’s development, leaving them unprepared for full-time education. Some are unable to hold a knife and fork - or use the loo.
It is a dangerous time to be young. Children are getting fatter - the report found one child who had seven chocolate bars as his packed lunch - and lazier. They do less sport. They are no longer allowed to go to the park unsupervised.
To compensate, we are spending vast sums on toys and computer games, hobbies and leisure activities to keep our children occupied.
It’s called the Parent Pound and businesses are capitalizing on it, offering a never-ending range of courses from fencing to acting to rowing. Anything to keep them - and us - happy.
It’s a vicious cycle. We are so controlling, orchestrating every aspect of our children’s lives, trying to please, appease and protect. Yet, paradoxically, it is our children who are controlling us, as boundaries become dangerously blurred.
“We have bred a generation of children who are actually emotionally neglected,” says Harriet Griffey, a parenting writer and broadcaster.
“They may seem in the know, but have very few real age-appropriate experiences.”
And they are swamped with choice - parents allow them to choose what to eat, what to wear, who to see, what clubs to join.
We’ve forgotten how to say NO.
“It’s insanity,” says Griffey. “Parents are treating children as adults. Children need boundaries. They need constant love and attention, but when rules need to be enforced, that is the parent’s job.”
Griffey believes that this inability to say no is because modern-day parents have lost confidence when it comes to child-rearing. “Parents are afraid that if they put down some ground rules, their children won’t like them,” she says.
“Most parents seem to think that parenting is about being their children’s friends, so they lay down no rules at all.”
“Now children have come to realise that whining and cajoling and maybe resorting to being just plain rude will get them what they want.”
Take my friend Connie. She telephoned me the other day to tell me she was going to parenting classes as the behaviour of her two teenage boys had got out of control.
“I’ve never laid down the law,” she said, “and I always wanted to be a friend to them, but now I’ve turned into the kind of mother I don’t want to be. I shout at them all the time. I think I hate them.”
Wanting to be a friend with a child is a common problem.
“But children want to have a parent - or two - to rebel against,” says the self-help guru Nina Grunfeld. “They’ve got to hate you for a while. You’ve got to set boundaries that they can take umbrage with. Only then can they find themselves.”
Child psychotherapist Asha Phillips, author of Saying No: Why It’s Important for You and Your Child, believes the problem lies in the fact that modern parents don’t want children, but extensions of themselves. “No one wants to look like a mum.”
“Women want to look younger and children want to look older. Everyone is dressed in the same clothes. In the past babies were dressed as babies.”
“Now even three-month-olds are wearing designer clothes.”
It doesn’t stop at clothes. Toys are also an issue. The problem, according to Phillips, is that: “Toys tend to be acquired through extortion on the child’s behalf, rather than as a gift.”
“They have nagged doe an MP3 player, say, and then they trash it because they think everything is replaceable. They have no attachment to toys any more. Their PSP can never be an imaginary friend. They can’t cuddle it or take it for a picnic. They learn no element of reciprocity.”
But how much is to do with the parents and how much with modern life? For there is more than one element that goes towards making Frankenkinder.
Advertising, for instance, treats children as mini-adults. Children are sexualized at a much earlier age these days and many watch reality shows from the age of eight upwards, which means they are exposed to an adult world.
Jo Schofield, author of Nature’s Playground, thinks over-dependence on the television damages children emotionally as well as physically.
“Creativity is disappearing. Children expect to be entertained, so they don’t build up their imagination. Playing outside, where you don’t have toys, is a great way to latch on to children’s imagination.”
“If children are stuck in a room they don’t learn how to fall over and pick themselves up. Children don’t learn to judge risks.”
As parents we must learn to let them. And risk our children’s disapproval when we tell them that they can’t always have their own way.
You need a set of structures to help you be a good parent. I didn’t want to chastise the boys, as I felt I would lose their love, but they ended up treating me appallingly. Now I feel I must give them tough love. It is the only way.
This is an article taken and adapted from Lucy Cavendish.
My friend looked harassed. “I’ve been in Tokyo on business,” she explained. “I was only there for four days but Archie was so upset that I promised I’d buy him a PlayStation 3. Now I’ve got to find him some games.” Archie is six.
The next day I was at a Sunday lunch with friends and their children. It was all pretty relaxed, but halfway through lunch I realized something was missing. The children were almost completely silent.
Most of them playing PSPs (PlayStation Portables) or watching DVDs on portable players. As we talked, I noticed the host’s three-year-old under the table, playing on his own PSP.
When his mother asked him what he was doing, he pulled a face and told her to “shut up”.
We are breeding a generation Frankenkinder. Coined in the United States, the term refers to the children of the financially rich but time-poor.
This generation of parents is trying to buy its children off, doing backflips so as not to disappoint them.
But whatever parents give, it’s never enough and the children they are raising are turning into monsters.
It’s little wonder, then, that according to a Cambridge University report published recently, classroom discipline is deteriorating because parents are overindulging their children.
The study reveals that exposure to television, video games and computers is damaging children’s development, leaving them unprepared for full-time education. Some are unable to hold a knife and fork - or use the loo.
It is a dangerous time to be young. Children are getting fatter - the report found one child who had seven chocolate bars as his packed lunch - and lazier. They do less sport. They are no longer allowed to go to the park unsupervised.
To compensate, we are spending vast sums on toys and computer games, hobbies and leisure activities to keep our children occupied.
It’s called the Parent Pound and businesses are capitalizing on it, offering a never-ending range of courses from fencing to acting to rowing. Anything to keep them - and us - happy.
It’s a vicious cycle. We are so controlling, orchestrating every aspect of our children’s lives, trying to please, appease and protect. Yet, paradoxically, it is our children who are controlling us, as boundaries become dangerously blurred.
“We have bred a generation of children who are actually emotionally neglected,” says Harriet Griffey, a parenting writer and broadcaster.
“They may seem in the know, but have very few real age-appropriate experiences.”
And they are swamped with choice - parents allow them to choose what to eat, what to wear, who to see, what clubs to join.
We’ve forgotten how to say NO.
“It’s insanity,” says Griffey. “Parents are treating children as adults. Children need boundaries. They need constant love and attention, but when rules need to be enforced, that is the parent’s job.”
Griffey believes that this inability to say no is because modern-day parents have lost confidence when it comes to child-rearing. “Parents are afraid that if they put down some ground rules, their children won’t like them,” she says.
“Most parents seem to think that parenting is about being their children’s friends, so they lay down no rules at all.”
“Now children have come to realise that whining and cajoling and maybe resorting to being just plain rude will get them what they want.”
Take my friend Connie. She telephoned me the other day to tell me she was going to parenting classes as the behaviour of her two teenage boys had got out of control.
“I’ve never laid down the law,” she said, “and I always wanted to be a friend to them, but now I’ve turned into the kind of mother I don’t want to be. I shout at them all the time. I think I hate them.”
Wanting to be a friend with a child is a common problem.
“But children want to have a parent - or two - to rebel against,” says the self-help guru Nina Grunfeld. “They’ve got to hate you for a while. You’ve got to set boundaries that they can take umbrage with. Only then can they find themselves.”
Child psychotherapist Asha Phillips, author of Saying No: Why It’s Important for You and Your Child, believes the problem lies in the fact that modern parents don’t want children, but extensions of themselves. “No one wants to look like a mum.”
“Women want to look younger and children want to look older. Everyone is dressed in the same clothes. In the past babies were dressed as babies.”
“Now even three-month-olds are wearing designer clothes.”
It doesn’t stop at clothes. Toys are also an issue. The problem, according to Phillips, is that: “Toys tend to be acquired through extortion on the child’s behalf, rather than as a gift.”
“They have nagged doe an MP3 player, say, and then they trash it because they think everything is replaceable. They have no attachment to toys any more. Their PSP can never be an imaginary friend. They can’t cuddle it or take it for a picnic. They learn no element of reciprocity.”
But how much is to do with the parents and how much with modern life? For there is more than one element that goes towards making Frankenkinder.
Advertising, for instance, treats children as mini-adults. Children are sexualized at a much earlier age these days and many watch reality shows from the age of eight upwards, which means they are exposed to an adult world.
Jo Schofield, author of Nature’s Playground, thinks over-dependence on the television damages children emotionally as well as physically.
“Creativity is disappearing. Children expect to be entertained, so they don’t build up their imagination. Playing outside, where you don’t have toys, is a great way to latch on to children’s imagination.”
“If children are stuck in a room they don’t learn how to fall over and pick themselves up. Children don’t learn to judge risks.”
As parents we must learn to let them. And risk our children’s disapproval when we tell them that they can’t always have their own way.
You need a set of structures to help you be a good parent. I didn’t want to chastise the boys, as I felt I would lose their love, but they ended up treating me appallingly. Now I feel I must give them tough love. It is the only way.
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