THE IMPORTANCE OF RE-OPENING THIS CASE: AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. DAVID ELKIND
America is the wealthiest and most powerful nation in history. It is also the most violent in the world today.
The rising number of massacres on America's playgrounds, however, manifest a spiritual sickness so ugly, tragic and incomprehensible that it is difficult to know how to discuss it. With Courtney Love, O.J. Simpson and other celebrities literally able to get away with murder, the message the young people of this country soon receive is not only that there is no hope, but that human life has no value. With such increasing disregard for human life, we have no reason to expect them to feel otherwise; and in an effort to cope with life, an increasing number of young people turn to satanism, self-destructive behaviors like drugs and alcohol, self-starvation or -mutilation, and of course, to more violence.
Rather than blaming innocent children, we have to assess where the fault properly lies: on parents and adult-run institutions. Dr. David Elkind, a professor under whom I studied at Tufts University, has written 17 books on the topic of child development, the most famous of which is The Hurried Child. In the following interview with Tuftonia Magazine (Summer, 1997) he speaks very eloquently and compassionately about society's abandonment of its children, and suggests that it is only by sacrifice that we will begin to heal the inexpressible pain of our children.
Sixteen years ago, in The Hurried Child, you argued that postmodern children were not given time to enjoy the pleasures as well as the pains and frustrations unique to childhood. How does your message play out now?
I am afraid that I preach to the converted and provide support for those parents who do not believe in hurrying their children. What has happened, though, since I wrote The Hurried Child, is that hurrying has become the social norm. Lessons for pre-schoolers, tests and grades in kindergarten, these are just a few of the symptoms of this institutionalization of hurrying. Unfortunately, even those parents I call "milk and cookie" parents find it hard to resist the societal pressures to push their children into age-inappropriate activities. I wrote Ties That Stress to show how changes in our society and in the family have brought about the practice and institutionalization of hurrying and long-term negative consequences for children and youth of societies that put adult needs ahead of those of our young people.
What trends in family dynamics or interactions reveal this in our daily lives?
Certainly one trend that we've all become familiar with is careers of both husbands and wives. Sometimes that's done for financial reasons, but often it's because both parents want to realize their talents. That makes two full-time-career families worthwhile, but sometimes these needs are achieved at the expense of the children. One of my key points is that the postmodern family is imbalanced because parent needs are favored over those of children and youth. Sometimes two full-time-career families can be done well, but often jobs take too much time and involvement on the part of the parents, and the kids can really suffer.
In what ways does the child suffer?
When the parent puts his or her needs ahead of those of their child, the most serious consequence is that the child feels he or she is not really cared for or about. One of the most important parenting skills is to, on occasion, put the child's needs ahead
of our own or at least treat them equally. I think kids today feel that isn't happening because everybody is doing their own thing.
Are children's emotional connections to parents then at risk?
Yes, and I believe they are being undermined by all of the nonsense about quality time. It's not the quality of time or the amount of time parents spend with their children that is important. What children need to know, and what truly builds attachment, is the sense that their parents care enough about them to make sacrifices on their behalf. This gives kids a solid sense that they are important in our lives. For example, immigrant families usually work very hard to give their children a better life, and may not spend a great deal of time with their children. Yet their children love them very much because they know they care about them. I tell contemporary parents they can demonstrate sacrifice in another way: When they say no, they set limits, when they demonstrate that they care enough to risk a confrontation.
What are the long-term consequences of not showing that level of caring?
If parents don't communicate that they care enough to sacrifice something for their kids, then one consequence is lack of motivation. After the age of six or seven, the motivation to learn is as much social as it is intrinsic. By school age most young people work hard, in part, to please parents. If children don't feel cared about, parents don't have any leverage with them. Their children don't feel that their lives are important to their parents, and consequently, they don't worry or care about what their parents think.
Another equally disturbing consequence is that such children are more lonely, more sad, than their peers. We're seeing much more depression in young children than we saw before and it's genuine depression: low mood, apathy, self-derogatory ideas. We see a lot of it, in part, because of stress and the feeling: "My parents don't care enough about me to sacrifice something for me."
And that ties in with what you cite as a "new morbidity," that increasingly young people who are stressed often do what adults do . . . they engage in actions that are destructive to themselves.
Up until the mid-century the majority of teenagers died from diseases, like TB and polio. But today a comparable, or even greater number of adolescents, die from stress-related causes, such as substance-related automobile accidents, suicide, self-starvation, drug overdoses. Again, I attribute this in part, at least, to the fact that a great many young people today feel that their needs are not being met.
Are there specific attitudes within society itself that support the family imbalance?
Very much so. We have a new perception of children and adolescents today that does not grow out of any new research or theories of child development but out of our societal needs. We used to see children as innocent and in need of protection and today we see them as competent and ready and able to deal with all of life's vicissitudes.
The problem is that while children are more competent than we used to give them credit for, they are less competent than we would like them to be. Parents needs competent children, say, to deal with, among other things, the violence, obscenity and raw sexuality on television. Parents have no control, really, over what comes on television and some of it is frightening to children. Industry also assumes that children are competent enough not to overindulge in foods that are high in fat, heavily salted and sugared. Coaches assume young children are as competent as older children to engage in organized sports. Schools have also accepted the idea of child competency and kindergartens are now teaching letters and numbers. All of these social institutions are putting added pressures on children. There is no longer a sense of responsibility in the larger community that children have to be protected.
You raised an interesting point about the imbalanced family regarding the demise of unilateral discipline that the "parent knows best" style of discipline has fallen out of fashion in favor of a new mutual discipline. Can this power shift undermine childhood experience?
It certainly undermines the child's belief that parents know what they are doing. In the exercise of unilateral authority, the adult makes the rules and the child obeys. That doesn't mean that the parent has to be a drill sergeant; discipline should be done with love and care. When parents engage in mutual authority, they let children make decisions that should be reserved for adults. It bothers me when I hear mothers whose five- or six-year old children are in beauty contests say: "She loves it! She really loves it!" Children, however, love a lot of things that aren't good for them. It's up to us parents to say, "Well, you may like candy, but too much of it is not good for you." we as adults have to make these decisions. When we become mutual we allow children to have too much control. They should have choices and preferences, certainly, but when it comes to teaching manners, healthy habits and morals, that is the adult's role. We have to teach children to say 'please' and 'thank you' and to respect other people's property and so on.
Even here at Tufts, I see students who want to relate on the basis of mutuality. They want to decide on when to come to class, when to turn in papers, and so on. They don't see why they should let me make these decisions. Fortunately, most of our students are traditional and accept adult authority and take responsibility for their own learning. But we have too many students who don't keep appointments, who don't do their homework on time. These are my grown-up hurried children who don't feel that adults have any authority over them.
Does some of this trend reflect the beliefs of parents of the 1970s?
It is in some ways a reflection of parents who as young people rebelled against all authority. The youth culture of that era no longer looked to adults for guidance and role models. Today, when these adults need to exert authority as parents, they don't have a pattern to fall back on. The result is that their children turn to their peers; peers always fill a parental vacuum. Peers have no intrinsic power, but when parents haven't played an appropriate role, teens look to their peer groups for guidance. Adolescents who have been well-parented find peers who share their values and they don't get in trouble.
The idea that "concrete verbal formulas" have replaced a more attentive and intuitive understanding of children seems pervasive too. It made me recall overhearing a parent in a store tell her little son "focus, focus!" and then he parroted it back to her, clearly annoyed. I had a feeling he had no idea what focus was, except that he couldn't do it.
Is that what you mean?
Not quite. It's a good example, though, of a parent attributing too much competence to a young child, in this case, the ability to understand an abstract intellectual concept. What I had in mind by technique is best illustrated by the outpouring of "how-to" books on parenting. these books focus on techniques, verbal formula and neglect of child development. The psychologist who started it all, Haim Ginott, made an important point, namely, that we have to think about the words we use with children. He argued that when children have accidents that we make sure we separate the action from the child. If a
child spills something we should say, "Let's clean it up," and not, "You are so clumsy and careless, be more careful next time." His point is well taken. Certainly we should avoid making children feel badly about themselves for no reason.
Unfortunately, Ginott failed to couple this valuable insight with an equal concern for changes in children's language comprehension with age. So while his contribution has been positive in one way, it also has had two negative consequences. For one thing, the focus on saying the right words has led to ignoring child development and the fact that words mean different things to children at different age levels. For example, if you say to a four-year-old, "It makes me feel good when you pick up your things," it can have negative consequences. Four-year-olds think magically and if you are feeling badly, he
or she may believe that they made you feel that way, just as they made you feel good. the language we use with children is important, but it has to be coupled with a knowledge of language and intellectual development.
The other negative consequence was the idea that children should never be made to feel badly about themselves for fear of injuring their self-esteem. Yet children should feel badly about themselves sometimes. We are all human, we make mistakes, say or do the wrong thing and make someone else hurt or unhappy. At such times we should feel badly about ourselves. Guilt is a healthy emotion and makes us try to correct our behavior in the future.
So the focus on technique has turned parents away from learning about child development and to the use of pat verbal formulas. It has also led to an overemphasis upon self-esteem and a failure to realize that sometimes children need to feel badly about themselves.
You also talk about the permeable family, which compared to the often rigid boundaries of the nuclear family is more fluid, more flexible, more obviously vulnerable to pressures from outside the family. It sounds a bit like a blessing and a curse.
Exactly. The permeable family includes the whole gamut of family forms, two-parent working, single-parent, remarried and adoptive families, among others. the blessing is that such families are now regarded as legitimate, rather than wrong or immoral, along with the recognition that they can all do a good job of child rearing. . .
[T]he curse is that all of these family forms are more permeable, more open to outside influences, than was true in the past. In addition, the family value of the nuclear family, togetherness, had important benefits for children. It meant that the family came first, and that say, family dinners, church attendance and family rituals same before business or vocational demands. In the permeable family, however, the value is that of autonomy, with each person encouraged to follow his or her own pursuits and interests. In the permeable family, a business meeting or soccer practice will be placed ahead of a family meal.
Autonomy is healthy, but children today are getting too much too early and could benefit from more togetherness, particularly at early age levels.
What do you tell parents who wake up in the middle of the night worrying about that?
I tell them, "You can't do everything, but you can do something." Children love ritual and the more you can routinely set aside some time for a family meal or activity the more secure the child will feel.
Is the future of innocence at risk if we hurry children through childhood?
We all like to think of children as innocent; it's a most precious characteristic. I have a little dog I take to the park and he likes to play with another little dog there, and it's always remarkable to see how people stop and smile when the two dogs are running and playing together; we love to see that innocence. We feel the same way about kids when they're just playing and being themselves. That's why it's distressing when we see these children in beauty pageants at age four or five; they are being deprived of that wonderful period.
I just reviewed an excellent book, Inventing Kindergarten, by Norman Borsterman about Frederick Froebel, the inventor of kindergarten. . . [His point is that creative play]--and his emphasis was on play, with forms and objects before letters and numbers--influenced a whole generation of artists and architects. This basic learning is part of the developmental stages of children, and one we skip today in our rush to academics, organized sports and lessons of all kinds. Early direct instruction puts innocence at risk. Froebel believed in the ability of children to learn through self-initiated and spontaneous activity. Given the right materials and the freedom and time to experiment with them, children learn a tremendous amount through their own constructions.
Earlier you said that hurrying children has become a social phenomenon; it must feel in a way like you're up against a force of nature.
I have spent the last 15 years of my life writing, lecturing and doing everything I could to hold back some of these trends. I feared some of the things that I now see in adolescents, the violence, substance abuse, risk taking in general. They all reflect young people's feeling that adults just don't care.
I take encouragement from the fact that a lot of parents read The Hurried Child and tell me it changed their parenting. But it's very difficult to engage in that kind of unhurried parenting today, the pressures are so great in the other direction. Even parents who don't believe in hurrying find it hard to resist the pressures to do so.
Toward that end, you say the single most important thing we can do is to reinvent our adulthood. Could you expand?