The Selfish Child

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 8/31/03 | Robert Shaw

[I_Love_My_Husband]

Child and family psychiatrist Robert Shaw says he wrote the latest book in the child-care advice genre because he had to. After the teen shootings at Columbine, he asked himself, "How would you have to raise your kids for them to do this?" His answer lay in the past three decades of books on child rearing. Although he admits there have been some stellar examples lately - Carol Eagle's "All That She Can Be: Helping Your Daughter Maintain her Self- Esteem," Michael Gurian's "The Good Son" and Audrey Ricker and Carolyn Crowder's "Backtalk: Four Steps To Ending Rude Behavior in Your Kids" - the majority have pushed a child-centric view that elevates the child to head of the household.

[I_Love_My_Husband]

general interest ping

long article but interesting

[jocon307]

Very interesting, thanks for posting this. It's about time someone wrote this book.

[riri]

bkmk

[Reeses]

Shaw admits to a nagging fear of being "lynched in his hometown": Berkeley

What's amazing is nowhere does he mention creating a new government program or raising taxes. He must live in Berkeley because as a psychiatrist that's where his customers are.

[Fraulein]

ping

[independentmind]

Shaw's book, "The Epidemic: The Rot of American Culture, Absentee and Permissive Parenting, and the Resultant Plague of Joyless, Selfish Children,"

Wow. I may have to buy this book.

[MeekOneGOP]

Thanks !

[EggsAckley]

Fascinating. Thanks for posting this.

[MeekOneGOP]

Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy.

[don-o]

Bump for later.

Looks very interesting

[independentmind]

Can you go to stores, restaurants or libraries without seeing these joyless children screaming, throwing food or pulling packages or books off shelves?

I see this almost everytime I go shopping or to certain restaurants; usually, the parents' solution is to buy the child something.

[angry elephant]

My son was in daycare and then private school all his life. He was well-behaved and a good student in prvate school. He now has a good job and a wife who he met in private school.

At this late date, though, he complains about not having spent enough time with me as a child. His private school did have a lot of hoemwork, so a lot of our time together was spent working on that rather than fun activities.

Although he didn't act out after the terrible twos, I wonder now if my own boredom with the public schools as a child caused me to want something for him that he didn't really want. He is very athletic, and maybe he would have been happier with more sports and a shallower education. His sporting events away from school created transportation problems, so that if I was tied up he had to take a cab. In public school, he could have just got on the after-school bus like the band members and athletes did when I was a kid. Also in retrospect, he might have preferred the larger crowds n public school. I just assumed that, like me, he would tire of waiting for the slower students to keep up.

I think is a strange outcome of wanting something for your child that you wanted for yourself. He definitely was a privileged child, bu still he wanted more.

[angry elephant]

My son was in daycare and then private school all his life. He was well-behaved and a good student in prvate school. He now has a good job and a wife who he met in private school.

At this late date, though, he complains about not having spent enough time with me as a child. His private school did have a lot of hoemwork, so a lot of our time together was spent working on that rather than fun activities.

Although he didn't act out after the terrible twos, I wonder now if my own boredom with the public schools as a child caused me to want something for him that he didn't really want. He is very athletic, and maybe he would have been happier with more sports and a shallower education. His sporting events away from school created transportation problems, so that if I was tied up he had to take a cab. In public school, he could have just got on the after-school bus like the band members and athletes did when I was a kid. Also in retrospect, he might have preferred the larger crowds n public school. I just assumed that, like me, he would tire of waiting for the slower students to keep up.

I think is a strange outcome of wanting something for your child that you wanted for yourself. He definitely was a privileged child, bu still he wanted more.

[GrandMoM]

BUMP

[Gerish]

Great article - worth the long read. How many of us know children like he describes? Can think of 8-9 myself which is sad.

[Johnbalaya]

btt

[netmilsmom]

Thanks for the ping!
I got really beat up on the last thread (in fact they are still doing it!) so I won't comment on this one.

But you know how I feel!!!!

[Maria S]

"Palatable labels ranging from "high-energy" to "hyperactive" to "temperamental" to "oppositional" are bandied about like personality traits that must be tolerated."

Ummm..."personality traits" such as those mentioned were NOT tolerated when I grew up! After a nasty bout of 'oppositional' or 'temperamental', I found myself wanting to just stand up rather than sit...for about a week, usually. My mama's 'medicine' was stout stuff.