Chicken Little: Stop Tweeting About the Falling Sky

Susan Gregory Thomas wrote a piece on MSNBC titled, Today's tykes: Secure kids or rudest in history? She adds, "Parents' focus on building self-esteem may neglect compassion for others."

Thomas starts with a couple of obnoxious stories:
A commenter on a recent New York Times’ blog recounted seeing a preschooler purposely trip a woman in a crowded restaurant, and chortle, “‘Mommy, did you see me trip that woman? I tripped her!’” — with no corrective measure from the mother. On Grandparents.com, a mortified grandmother recently asked for advice on how to handle her grandson’s relentless public insulting of his own mother, who apparently seemed unable or unwilling to stand up to the mistreatment.

Then she quickly concludes:
Many experts say today’s kids are ruder than ever. And it may have something to do with popular parenting movements focusing on self-esteem and the generation that’s embracing them: Generation X, or those born between 1965 and 1977.

How is it that people observe a few bratty, uncontrollable kids and derive conclusions about an entire generation. Actually, when she says "rudest in history" she is stating that today's kids are the rudest kids that mankind has ever seen. And she also acts like there is some data on this somewhere in the world. Should rudeness be added to the 2020 U.S. Census so we can get a handle on it?

All too often, people jump to unfounded conclusions based on a few encounters. Even if it is dozens of encounters, it doesn't mean anything about an entire generation of kids. The real issue, when you read a piece like this, is how you and your spouse feel about the child (children) you are raising. How do you expect them to behave and what are you both prepared to do if they step outside the parameters that you've set?

Amidst her sweeping epic generalizations, Thomas has some valid points such as:
"It may be that today’s parents are so fixated on their children's emotional well-being that they’re teaching them that the well-being of others is comparatively unimportant, says Dr. Philippa Gordon, a long-time pediatrician in Park Slope, Brooklyn, an urban New York neighborhood famous for its dense Gen-X parent population."

Fight More, Bore Less

Linda Carroll wrote a nice piece for MSNBC that belongs in the category of counter intuitive research.

Is boredom really worse than fighting in a marriage?

According to Carroll, experts say that shared challenges and exciting diversions are what make relationships interesting long after the wedding gown has been packed up and stored away. And the opposite, boredom and a dull, daily routine, can kill a marriage, squashing intimacy and romance.

Most research on long-term relationships has focused on eliminating problems such as conflict and tension, explains the new study’s lead author, Irene Tsapelas, a researcher in the psychology department at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. But surveys have suggested that boredom may be even more corrosive to a relationship, she adds.

123 Michigan couples (the first marriage for all of them)were interviewed for the study at year zero, year seven, and year 16 of the marriage (not a big sample, but I like the time intervals - author).

Carroll quotes Helen Fisher (research professor of anthropology at Rutgers University) which is always a good idea. And quoting Fisher usually means mentioning the neurotransmitter called dopamine.

People often show up in Dr. Barbara Bartlik’s office ready to bolt from a marriage because they’re bored. “I tell them that changing partners isn’t going to fix the boredom,” says Bartlik, assistant professor of psychiatry at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. “By sharing novel or exciting experiences with your partner, you’re duplicating some of the brain chemistry that fires up at the beginning of a relationship.”

(It goes without saying, which means that I am about to say it anyway.....that I don't advise couples to fight as a way of building a healthy marriage. Click here to see an earlier post describing the research of Dr. John Gottman. He indicates that each normal healthy marriage comes along with a package of irresolvable issues, such as division of household tasks and differences in approaches to child rearing. The key to a good marriage is not the resolution of conflict but rather the regulation of conflict, according to Gottman.)

MSNBC's Melissa Schorr Cites Dr. Singer on Delayed Childbearing

My recent conversation with Melissa Schorr resulted in a nice shout-out on today's MSN home page. She approached the topic from many interesting angles and I thanked her for our talk. Bottom line: these are scary times economically speaking, and having a child is a decision that is tied directly to family finances. Responsible parenting means giving careful consideration to your finances, your marriage, and your desire to parent before having a(nother) child. I suggested in my original release, that parents who delay having a child for a year or so in tough economic times is understandable; delaying for 3 or more years could cause some very undesirable consequences.