Last week, Francis Vailles signed in The Press two excellent columns entitled “Are our children more difficult than elsewhere”? He raised questions that have been burning on the lips of many of us for some time now. Naturally, this caused an uproar of reactions.
Certainly, the initial text focused on the state of our children, but many teachers were quick to point out the sad open secret that they observe in the field: behind every difficult child, there are overwhelmed parents.
And this is not unique to Quebec. All Western societies note the phenomenon and try to elucidate it, starting with our neighbors to the South, where the trend emerges.
Overprotected and underprotected
For nearly two decades, psychologist Jonathan Haidt has been interested in the epidemic of mental disorders afflicting the “anxious generation.” Obviously, it also looks at the evolution of parental and societal culture that contributed to it.
In its simplest expression, his observation is the following: we overprotect children in the real world and we do not protect them enough in their virtual bubble.
Free play, the quintessential learning tool for children, has shrunk dramatically. This heavy loss compromises the imagination, confidence and overall well-being of our little ones. Likewise, the radius of youthful freedom of movement has narrowed considerably over the years, robbing them of a valuable sense of agency and an obvious remedy for sedentary life.
With real life deemed too dangerous, children’s independence has been relegated to a futile virtual world that breeds dependence, envy and rumination.
Fortunately, the solutions advocated by Haidt prove relatively easy to implement: further restrict the use of screens and encourage children to reinvest in the real world, both at home and at school.
Overdiagnosed and under-equipped
On a side note, investigative journalist Abigail Shrier sets a huge milestone with her book Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Upwhich is currently at the top of sales for the giant Amazon.
In his well-documented essay, Shrier immediately extols the merits of appropriate and well-conducted therapy. That said, it highlights the excesses of excessive therapy of childhood in which the remedy can become worse than the disease.
Supporting studies and interviews, she denounces, like Céline Lamy more recently in our The duty, overdiagnosis of mental health disorders and subsequent overmedicalization. The journalist also highlights the perverse effects of a therapy which has escaped from the offices and has insidiously invaded both the educational environment and parental approaches.
Finally, she questions the positive impact of the famous “positive parenting”, which involves constantly being on the lookout for the child’s emotions and avoiding the use of any form of punishment. Unsurprisingly, this approach has spread like wildfire among parents who aspire to perfection and are easily prone to guilt. Furthermore, in a context where the preciousness of children is proportional to their rarity, many parents deny themselves the right to make mistakes. Their offspring follow the same diet. Shrier says that by preventing our children from experiencing discomfort, frustration or failure, we deprive them of the essential tools to navigate life’s ups and downs. In other words, we keep them prisoners of an eternal pseudo-childhood that has exchanged lightness for anxiety.
Shrier’s ultimate injunction is simple: let’s take a step back from these approaches which have clearly not proven themselves.
Anyway, back to basics. Let children be children, parents be parents and teachers be teachers.