Spoiling Childhood: How Well-Meaning Parents Are Giving Children Too Much - But Not What They Need (Framing 21st Century Social Issues) - Hardcover

"Ehrensaft examines the stresses on families in light of the fast-track contemporary American culture in which there are no clear parenting directives....[Her approach] avoids reductive or formulaic declarations and encourages parents to consider this insightful, well-argued discussion in the context of their own parenting styles."-- (04/18/1999) "[Readers] will be rewarded with informed, workable tactics for overcoming personal, situational, and cultural obstacles that inhibit healthy, happy family life....Ehrensaft's remarkably deft exploration of childhood today encourages parents to make hopeful decisions in adopting more successful ways to raise children."-- (04/18/1999) "Here's a fresh, no-nonsense approach to both the plight of parents and the needs of the child....[Ehrensaft's] ideas and sensitivity reflect years of practice as a clinical psychologist as well as a parent. Her insight encourages parents to give generously of themselves, but never give themselves over to their children."-- (04/18/1999)

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.