The joyless childhood

In his recent book, “The Epidemic: The Rot of American Culture,” child psychiatrist Dr. Robert Shaw contends that America’s decadent culture — combined with absentee and permissive parenting — is corroding children, breeding a generation of sullen and joyless youth.

Dr. Shaw discussed this phenomenon in a recent telephone interview.

Q: Can you explain how American culture has been corroded?

A: A look at MTV, interacting with video games, reading the daily newspaper with its description of the level of integrity in corporate life, the massive mistrust of government and politicians and the reluctance to pass on moral values to children are all signs of moral decay within American culture. …

Q: You say that America has spawned an entire generation of emotionally stunted children without the capacity to appreciate the feelings and legitimate needs of others. Why is our society raising joyless and selfish children?

A: I attribute it to changes within the past 30 years in parenting practices, which are one of the defining aspects of a culture. These changes both have to do with excessive absentee and permissive parenting. Parents are insecure, unwilling to control their children and behaving more like peers than parents. The results are painful for both parents and children.

Q: What accounts for the changes in parenting in the past 30 years?

A: No one is entirely sure. In the 1960s, we began to equate the possibility of attaining happiness with freedom from constraint. We still believe this about children, even though we don’t tend to feel that way about adults anymore. What is happening with children is a continuation of attitudes that have been with us for a long time. There have also been tremendous societal changes secondary to the advent of birth control and the woman’s liberation movement. This has made it possible for women to find exciting and useful careers in the workplace, which often leaves them very pressed for time to spend with their children. …

Q: You claim that parents have lost touch with what children need to grow and thrive. Why have parents become so disconnected with their children?

A: It is a combination of tremendous pressures on parents to maintain their place in society, pressures to work a brutally competitive struggle for educational advantage. Many parents are already the second generation of this problem and are so detached from the history of parenting that they have lost sight of the degree to which children need bonding and a stable environment with a set of rules and limits within which they can operate. They also need to be protected from the assault of media, which is inducting them into a consumerist and valueless attitude.

Q: Can you discuss the four essential “vitamins” you list in your book that children require to reach their full potential?

A: The first is a sheltered bonding experience, which is best done by their mother. This teaches children how to love and helps them learn to be attached in a good way to others. The second is moral and spiritual development. The third is being sheltered from the media, and the fourth is the provision of downtime, which is becoming a scarce commodity for heavily pressured and overscheduled children. …

Downtime is the opportunity to have quiet, not externally stimulated time, which offers an opportunity for reflection. … It is a time when creativity, dreams and aspirations develop. From my point of view, a child sitting on a swing just quietly looking off into the distance is a more useful opportunity for a child than a great deal of the so-called “enrichment activities,” which we are forcing upon our children.

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