UnHerd- Bad therapy is stunting our kids Abigail Shrier’s book paints a devastating picture
Bad Therapy argues that far from helping, these practices make everything worse. The children and young people raised by boundary-negotiating, feeling-validating, trauma-exploring, “talk it out” parents and educators, marinaded in the therapeutic worldview are not, as hoped, happier, more confident, and more emotionally literate. They’re neurotic, anxious, and self-absorbed; alternately fearful of the outside world and adept at exploiting soft-authoritarian therapeutic institutions for personal advantage; above all, they are profoundly unhappy.
I see it evidenced in our grandkids.
Heartbreaking when a 6 year old manipulates the parents, because no boundaries, no consequences.
“adept at exploiting soft-authoritarian therapeutic institutions for personal advantage”
Home is the same , and the family in it . I watched it happen for six years, well I should have just watched and
kept my mouth shut, and not have an opposing view but it’s my nature. The article is bang on.
And the kids aren’t totally stupid but scary smart they wrap parents and teachers around their finger at a drop
of the hat.
You’ve seen them, the mother stroking her daughters hair in the line ahead of you…. but the grown
daughter is taller than she is and around seventeen years old.
I get it I really do (it’s easier and it’s not like their isn’t love there) ….. but sooner or later they have to get out in
the world and look someone in the eyes, instead of into their cell phone.
I was reading something the other day that said there are two kinds of Parents – those that look at their child
the same as the day they are born, and those that look at their child and see the adult they could become.
I think one might push a little more.
A friend of mine had her daughter, husband and two kids come for a visit, I got talking with her one day and she said the two little boys were out of control monsters but her daughter didn’t believe in discipline or correcting their bad behavior. I told her –your house your rules, give them one warning and drag them into a corner and make them stay there-if her daughter didn’t like it the nearest hotel is two minutes away. I was one of six kids, born 9/10 months apart, my grandfather was our primary care provider and he had two rules: No tattle tailing, and if you are crying he’d give you a reason to cry harder.
Good advice, Rose. Far too many parents allow their children to behave poorly with zero consequences.
My grandfather raised 13 children on a quarters section of hardscrabble land in the 1930s. He advice was, “If you see a little boy smack him. He is either just been in trouble or thinking about getting into trouble.
Sooner or later, everyone comes around to the idea of patriarchy.
Interesting article. Very much back in the day, the local paper reported that a particular high school was no longer allowing excuses. Said school was in an interesting part of town, mixing kids from fancy houses to those on welfare or worse. As I remember the reportage, the school was telling the kids that family problems would no longer be an excuse for missing classes and not handing in homework, but that the school was working (with the local library) to provide spots for said kids to do their homework and be away from the family situation. The article didn’t quite state that the school’s positions was “so your dad’s a drug dealer and you mum’s a hooker; you still have to attend regularly and hand in your homework and here’s how we’ll help you to do this” but it came close. Never did hear the end results but do hope some teens took advantage.
No way. The completely obvious outcome that everyone who wasn’t functionally retarded could see a mile off actually happened? Amazing.