Psychologist Madeline Levine, author of the New York Times bestseller The Price of Privilege, brings together cutting-edge research and thirty years of clinical experience to explode once and for all the myth that good grades, high test scores, and college acceptances should define the parenting endgame.
Parents, educators, and the media wring their hands about
the plight of America's children and teens—soaring rates of emotional problems,
limited coping skills, disengagement from learning and yet there are ways to
reverse these disheartening trends. Teach Your Children Well acknowledges
that every parent wants successful children. However, until we are clearer
about our core values and the parenting choices that are most likely to lead to
authentic, and not superficial, success, we will continue to raise exhausted,
externally driven, impaired children who believe they are only as good as their
last performance. Real success is always an inside job, argues Levine, and is
measured not by today's report card but by the people our children become
fifteen or twenty years down the line.
Refusing to be diverted by manufactured controversies such
as "tiger moms versus coddling moms," Levine confronts the real
issues behind the way we push some of our kids to the breaking point while
dismissing the talents and interests of many others. She shows us how to shift
our focus from the excesses of hyperparenting and the unhealthy reliance on our
children for status and meaning to a parenting style that concentrates on both
enabling academic success as well as developing a sense of purpose, well-being,
connection, and meaning in our children's lives.
Teach Your Children Well is a call to action.
And while it takes courage to make the changes we believe in, the time has
come, says Levine, to return our overwrought families to a healthier and saner
version of themselves.
