| =09Michelle Kondrich for NPR |
|
Childhood — and parenting — have radically changed in the past few decades, to the point where far more children today struggle to manage their behavior. That's the argument that author Katherine Reynolds Lewis makes in her new parenting book, The Good News About Bad Behavior.
"We face a crisis of self-regulation," Lewis writes. And by "we," she means the parents, caregivers and teachers who struggle daily with difficult behavior from the children in their lives.
Lewis, a journalist, certified parent educator and mother of three, asks why so many kids today are having trouble managing their behavior and emotions. Three factors, she says, have contributed mightily to this crisis.
First: Where, how and how much kids are allowed to play has changed. Children today aren’t taking small risks and managing their own time. Lewis says, “those are really important social and emotional skills for kids to learn, and play is how all young mammals learn them.”
Second: Kids’ access to technology and social media has exploded.
Third: Children today are too "unemployed," Lewis argues. She doesn't simply mean the occasional summer job for a high school teen. The term is a big tent, and she uses it to include household jobs that can help even toddlers build confidence and a sense of community.
"They're not asked to do anything to contribute to a neighborhood or family or community," Lewis tells NPR in a recent interview. Instead, children and parents often focus on individual goals, like getting good grades or becoming successful in sports or other activities. These goals don’t give children the meaning that contributing to their families and communities can. "And that really erodes their sense of self-worth — just as it would with an adult being unemployed," Lewis says.
These changes in childhood mean more children are misbehaving in ways they didn’t in decades past, and Lewis has advice for parents considering the best ways to respond when children do act out. She uses the four R’s: “Any consequence should be revealed in advance, respectful, related to the decision the child made, and reasonable in scope,” she says.
You can read our interview with Lewis here.
Maybe you’d also like to know the key to raising a happy child — and a brilliant one. We’ve written about those things, too. |
=20 
0 comments:
Post a Comment