Jonathan Haidt: The Three Terrible Ideas Weakening Gen Z and Damaging Universities and Democracies

[MamaJewel]

People are so afraid of their child being kidnapped or molested, though, that they won’t let them out of their sight.

I wonder why?

After Adam Walsh’s disappearance in the early 80s, John Walsh put the fear of God into parents with his America’s Most Wanted and missing children’s center programs.

Being sexually assaulted as a child exacts a price on kids. Adult predators are opportunists. I wouldn’t let my kids go to the park alone and I watch them in the back yard while they play. But like law enforcement officers tell us, it’s the darn stinkbutts that we know who are more likely to harm our children.

I agree with the speaker that constant protectiveness is harmful. But when is it ok to let one’s guard down? It’s not good that we have to be hyper-vigilant as parents because we never know if/when an incident that happens with our children, regardless how minor it seems, will result in us being accused of neglect or abuse as well. I think that is part of the problem too. Society needs to provide parents with the safe space to let their children grow and flourish.

 

[MamaJewel]

current boring playgrounds

= fewer injury attorneys filing lawsuits

I bet those kids on the old playgrounds didn’t suffer from sensory processing issues (if they survived the playground).

Those sets were dismantled by the time I was on the playground

 

[PetraG]

After Adam Walsh’s disappearance in the early 80s, John Walsh put the fear of God into parents with his America’s Most Wanted and missing children’s center programs.

That program and other inform-the-public projects like it are exactly what the speaker in the video thinks were the impetus for this surge in protective impulse in parents.

The other problem, too, is that families are of course smaller and you don’t have the neighborhoods where you know everyone knows your kids and your kids know that they’re being watched by everybody. You don’t live on a farm with several children who at least sort of keep track of each other by a certain age. Many of us live where the “home territory” is smaller and closer to more total strangers, because we are much more transient than we once were.

 

[Magnanimity]

With regards to parenting, he says that children who are treated as fragile and in need of constant protection are particularly prone to the anxiety, depression and the self-image that they are incapable of coping with negative feedback or bad experiences without suffering permanent harm.

Haidt is very good and quite fair, I think. He tries to be self-reflective, and he does stand as an antidote to much of what is afflicting children today (and millennials). He has spoken and written about the “coddling” of our youth. As a parent myself, with my oldest being college age, I can affirm that I fell into the trap of precisely what he has described—the helicopter parent. Contrasting my own approach to “hovering” with that of how Baby Boomers (my parents) reared children, it is night and day. Many of the criticisms Haidt gives are right on the money. Gen Xers have, generally, hovered over their children, have been too protective and have coddled them—to the great detriment of the next generation. I haven’t just seen this in my own parenting approach but in pretty much the huge majority of all my peers in their own child-rearing.

 

[PetraG]

I haven’t just seen this in my own parenting approach but in pretty much the huge majority of all my peers in their own child-rearing.

We tried, “wow, that looks like it hurt. How are you doing?”
Not “that didn’t hurt” because yes it probably hurt a lot, we all know it hurt, let’s just be real, here.
But also not “Öh, you’re hurt!!! How will you ever stand it??? Where did I go wrong??? I’m so SORRY I FAILED YOU FOR LETTING YOU GET HURT!”’
No, it’s “you’re going to get hurt in life, it does hurt, but you can cope with it and most of the time you don’t need a health care professional or more than a proportionate amount of empathy to get through it.”
One of them grew up to play catcher, so obviously they learned to tolerate physical pain, lol.

 

[Magnanimity]

No, it’s “you’re going to get hurt in life, it does hurt, but you can cope with it and most of the time you don’t need a health care professional

We tried to strike that middle ground too, but we did tend toward being the over-protector hoverers… I don’t think we’ve done awful damage to them, but we didn’t exactly raise the most self-sufficient children who throw caution to the wind. :man_shrugging:t2:

 

[PetraG]

We tried to strike that middle ground too, but we did tend toward being the over-protector hoverers… I don’t think we’ve done awful damage to them, but we didn’t exactly raise the most self-sufficient children who throw caution to the wind. :man_shrugging:t2:

Temperament has a lot to do with it. Parents who forget this are famous for having two children who show what great parents they are followed by a third who proves to them (or at least to the world) that the first two were 100% the mercy of God on their parents’ level of competence, lol.

 

[Magnanimity]

100% the mercy of God on their parents’ level of competence, lol.

Haha, good one! So true. I would only add that as I’ve gotten older and my own spirituality has deepened, I’ve come to understand that all children (all people) are 100% recipients of the mercy of God. So, not to worry…

 

[PetraG]

Haha, good one! So true. I would only add that as I’ve gotten older and my own spirituality has deepened, I’ve come to understand that all children (all people) are 100% recipients of the mercy of God. So, not to worry…

The big thing to tell children is that they can do great no matter how many mistakes we make.
Or, as the pilots say: Äny landing you walk away from is a good one.
Childhood is actually like that, too. The neuroscientists say you have until you’re about 30 to clean it up and you can do more than you think even in old age. (That’s not even the ones who understand grace!)

 

[Peeps]

I told them when they were 10 that if they wanted to be men by the time they were 16, they had better start practicing, because the habits of men are something that have to be learned and practiced, not something that just happens when a birthday rolls around. They knew that if they acted like men, I would see them as men. They do, and I do.)

This is really nice!

I have two nephews who have told their mother that they don’t want to be men. They don’t want to learn to drive. They don’t want to get involved in any school activities. They don’t want to go anywhere.

One of them rides a bike, but the other does no physical exercise at all. He also eats nothing except cheese pizza, 6 soft shell taco bell tacos with NO lettuce or tomatoes, just beef and cheese, nacho cheese doritos, and Mountain Dew. Nothing else. If these things are not available, he doesn’t eat, but then his mother runs out to the store or the taco bell or pizza parlor to buy his special food.

These two nephews have Asperger’s which they were receiving counselling for when they were smaller, but haven’t had any counselling or therapy for at least five years.

They go to school but are not progressing well.

They simply don’t want to be men.

And by the way, from birth and even now, their mother calls them both “Baby!” It’s so sad–when she talks to them, she says, “Baby, you’re so sweet!” etc.

This is awful to watch. My grown daughters are better “men” than these boys! They were both working at paying jobs by the time they were 14!

 

[bassmansteiny]

Very interesting. I will have to check this video out when i get a chance. Thanks for sharing with us.

 

[PetraG]

I have two nephews who have told their mother that they don’t want to be men. They don’t want to learn to drive. They don’t want to get involved in any school activities. They don’t want to go anywhere…
These two nephews have Asperger’s which they were receiving counselling for when they were smaller, but haven’t had any counselling or therapy for at least five years.

Oh, that is rough. Our children are hearing impaired and were speech-delayed, and we had a lot of help from the professionals who helped them to learn to listen and talk to encourage them to be self-advocating and self-propelled. It took them a lot of work and their teachers recognized how hard they worked, and so they also have a very good work ethic. (We were also taught by teachers early on to praise not talent but work ethic. When children are praised for working, they aren’t afraid to fail, because whether they work or not is in their control even when success or failure isn’t. If they are praised for being smart, then when things get tough they’re afraid their intelligence has failed them.)

People who face a challenge like that in childhood are too often held back by parents who are afraid their children can’t rise above their challenges. It takes extra effort, and that can be hard on a parent to see, but you have to advocate for what the child’s adult self will have wanted you to do, as best as you can, even though the child may not like it at the time. It is not unusual for the work the child has to do to rise about an “unfair” challenge to help form them into a confident and more industrious person than they might have been if they had not had that challenge to cope with.

 

[adgloriam]

Zach:
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Gosh, the kids in that first image are in danger for dear life. If they fall of from there they’d probably break their neck or something.