Spoiling Childhood: How Well-Meaning Parents Are Giving Children Too Much - But Not What They Need [Paperback]

Diane Ehrensaft (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 16, 1999

Vividly encapsulating the absurdities, heartbreaks, and possibilities of contemporary child rearing, this book shows how parents today are all too often caught up in a guilt-driven pendulum swing between parenting too little and parenting too much. Dr. Ehrensaft helps us imagine a society where we can overcome the treacherous balancing acts of work and family demands; where "good-enough" replaces perfect parenting, harriedness is traded for harmony, and children grow on a healthy continuum from infancy to adulthood.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Ehrensaft, a developmental and clinical psychologist, provides an analysis of parenting aimed at both parents and experts in child development. The key to understanding her theories is her concept of "kinderdult," a word coined in this work to describe the paradox of children who are given both too much indulgence and too much power. Ehrensaft feels that parents and children alike are confused by the dual and opposing phenomena of excessive child-centeredness and adult self-centeredness. She hopes to empower parents to sort out their own needs, to stop being overinvolved with their children, and to use assertiveness when appropriate. A thoughtful title; recommended for larger public and academic libraries.?Kay L. Brodie, Chesapeake Coll., Wye Mills., Md.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"In this wonderful and very readable book, Dr. Ehrensaft explores the difficulties and stresses that today's parents are creating for themselves and their children. Her skillful presentation of complex psychological and social issues, illuminated throughout with fascinating case vignettes, will help parents establish a needed balance in their parenting between overindulgence and unrealistic expectation, and create a family with appropriate child-focus without complete surrender of self and marriage."--Joan B. Kelly, PhD, Co-author of Surviving the Breakup: How Children and Parents Cope with Divorce; Executive Director, Northern California Mediation Center

"This is an extremely moving book. Diane Ehrensaft locates and describes a profound unease and uncertainty among contemporary middle-class parents as they cope not only with the time crunch of two careers but also with a cultural crisis in conceptions of parenting. Dr. Ehrensaft points us toward psychologically informed principles that will foster parents' competence and well-being and thereby the sense of competence and well-being in their children as well." --Nancy J. Chodorow, PhD, author of Femininities, Masculinities, Sexualities: Freud and Beyond

"One of the most interesting and helpful books on parenting I've read. It brilliantly untangles the dilemmas of modern parenting--showing how we have come to confuse what we want and what our children need. It challenges us to rethink our roles as mothers and fathers, and offers compassionate guidance on how we can do that." --James A. Levine, EdD, Director, The Fatherhood Project

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Product Details

• Paperback: 263 pages
• Publisher: Guilford Press; 1 edition (April 16, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572304502
• ISBN-13: 978-1572304505
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,248,795 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crucial reading for parents today!, May 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Spoiling Childhood: How Well-Meaning Parents Are Giving Children Too Much - But Not What They Need (Paperback)

Parents who love Dr. Laura Schlessinger will love this book too! Ehrensaft zings into the fundamental psychological issues behind parenting styles of today's parents, and places them in a cultural and historical context. For the first time, I've read a book that identifies the pressures that contribute to my own parenting mistakes and pitfalls. By avoiding giving a cookbook solution to overcoming the expectations we place on our children, Ehrensaft forces readers to think about the motivations behind their own parenting styles, and thus to make decisions about how to make our children's lives less confusing. This book is an outstanding commentary on parenting today, and I am recommending it to my friends, relatives and clients, AND my children's teachers. If you are a parent in today's world, feeling confused, worried or guilty about your parenting style and its impact on your children, READ this book!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very useful for modern parenting, for fathers and mothers., December 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Spoiling Childhood: How Well-Meaning Parents Are Giving Children Too Much - But Not What They Need (Hardcover)

Ehrensaft describes sympathetically the guilt pitfalls facing parents in the modern two-earner family. Trying to balance work and family is confusing and often makes us anxious and harried fathers and mothers. As a result, she argues, we can easily over-pamper our children, over-invest in presents and ironically rush our children too quickly through their childhood. In clear and helpful prose and with many concrete examples, drawn from years of clinical experience and teaching as well as from modern psychological research, Ehrensaft offers parents insightful advice on how to be more relaxed and better parents to our children. Few things in life are more important. Well-balanced in lessons for fathers as well as mothers, this is a must read for current and prospective parents.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Dangerous territory without much back-up., April 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Spoiling Childhood: How Well-Meaning Parents Are Giving Children Too Much - But Not What They Need (Hardcover)

She takes some big unsubstantiated leaps about a pretty serious topic, parental aggression, in this book. Can she be serious that there is a link between a societal ban on hitting kids and the rise in child abuse? I think we need to see some hard research on that. If that's not bad enough, she also wonders whether there is something to be learned from her own mother, who freely called out to bisbehaving kids, "I'll kill you!" Although her concern for the inhibited parent may be justified, she doesn't seem to know when to draw the line on parental aggression nor give the reader a sense of appropriate ways to express anger. Thanks anyway, I'll pass on this one.