We've got to stop this business of letting kids believe that if I just get into one more AP class, if I just get another GPA point, that will make the difference in getting into Harvard ... or Princeton ... and the feeling that if I don't go to Harvard or Princeton, that essentially, my life is over.

Suniya Luthar

Categorized in : Health News

If ever there were truth to the saying, 'It takes a village,' it's now, it's not it takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to raise a preteen.

I was a little taken aback to see that apparently preadolescence is the new adolescence or junior high school or middle school is the new high school.

You see this person who is almost but not quite grown-up physically, saying at one moment, 'Leave me alone. I've got this figured out. Let me do it my way,' or 'Don't ask me questions,' and so on, and on the other hand, they (are) crushed in tears, and looking to you for comfort just like a child. They might cry like the children they used to be, but being able to actually comfort them is nowhere near as easy.

We are certainly not saying that all affluent parents do this, or even that most do. But there is a sizable and vocal minority of parents who do not just bail their kids out but do it repeatedly and do it in very inappropriate circumstances, so these are the kids who then start to believe, and rightfully so, I'm not getting caught and even if I do, nothing's going to happen to me.

Where do you draw the line? when do you say to your child, no, you don't have to take your SAT for the fourth time? You don't have to take that fifth AP course?

Darling, it doesn't matter that you didn't make the advanced reading class, but if you don't really believe that, trust me, your kid is going to catch on, and fast.

It's not easy. It's perplexing. It's bewildering, this business of being a 'good enough' parent, and to think that just because we are highly-educated or well-read, we have the right answers, that we know the best thing to do and can follow through in doing it, is so very misguided.

There is no stronger protective factor for kids than their primary caregiver's mental health, we know from decades of research that when parents are unhappy or highly distressed, this inevitably negatively affects their parenting behaviors, so it's incumbent on us as a society to figure out how to bring continuous and sustained support for people who are raising the next generation.

Just like children need ongoing, unconditional support to manage in the face of unrelenting, high levels of stress, we grown-ups need exactly the same thing, who doesn't need love, and who doesn't need more love at this point in history, when humanity has been collectively traumatized.

It could be the football coach, band teacher, biology teacher or the receptionist at the front desk.