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Zusammenfassung von The Self-Driven Child

Name: The Self-Driven Child
Rating: 4.5 (244 reviews)
Author: William Stixrud and Ned Johnson

William Stixrud and Ned Johnson

The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives

4.5 (244 Bewertungen)

22 Min.

Inhaltsübersicht

The Self-Driven Child
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What’s in it for me? Learn to give your children control over their lives.

Children today are faced with external pressures like never before. Just look at higher education – to attain the grades that will get them into a good college, kids have to work punishingly hard. At the same time, they’re surrounded by attention-sapping technology that can cause sleep deprivation and anxiety. So it’s understandable when concerned parents want to take the reins.

But what if this is exactly the wrong approach? What if exerting control causes your child to be more stressed? In these blinks you’ll discover an alternative way of helping your kids manage their lives – one that puts them in control and allows them to make the big decisions. Through hypothetical examples drawn from the authors’ work, you’ll learn how best to empower your child. It’s a method that involves, above all, letting go.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

that kids are capable of making big decisions;
why you need to become a pillar of calm; and
how a gap year can be better than going straight to college.

Children suffer from stress when they feel like everything is out of their control.

We all like to feel in control. That’s why we’re more at ease when we drive to a destination instead of flying – on a plane, our fate is in the pilot’s hands rather than our own. It’s why we like to study the menu carefully before we order.

In fact, having a sense of agency is the most important factor when it comes to our happiness and well-being. This was the dramatic conclusion of a study done in the 1970s, which found that nursing home residents who were told that they had responsibility for their lives lived longer than those who were told that nursing staff would take care of everything.

When everything feels beyond our control, we get stressed. And stress has serious consequences for the health and well-being of children as well as adults.

The key message here is: Children suffer from stress when they feel like everything is out of their control.

Imagine a 15-year-old, named Zara, who attends an expensive private school. Her life is structured around a strict timetable. During the day, she shuttles back and forth between classes, with just a few short breaks. Then, after school, she has hockey practice and volunteers for an environmental charity, as her parents advised her to do.

As soon as she’s home, her parents have more plans for her, starting with four hours of homework. Weekends are structured just the same: if Zara wants a little free time, she has to make sure her homework is all done.

Her parents push her because they’re desperate for her to get into an elite university. But Zara suffers from migraines. She’s not sleeping well. And she frequently gets into screaming fights with her parents.

Is all of this “for her own good,” as her parents claim? Of course not. Constantly being told what to do both at home and at school causes children to suffer from stress and anxiety. This kind of toxic stress can impair a critical stage of brain development, which happens between the ages of 12 and 18. This could lead to long-term mental and physical health problems.

The problem is widespread, and it affects affluent households – in which the pressure on children to achieve tends to be particularly high – most of all. In fact, a recent study found that 80 percent of students at one elite Silicon Valley high school suffered from anxiety caused by stress.

So what can parents do differently? We’ll find out in the next blink.

Giving children control over their lives makes them happier and more motivated.

In addition to being unhealthy, a lack of control over their own lives also encourages children to push back, resisting anything they're told to do – even when those instructions are wise. Like, for instance, “You need to get your homework in on time, otherwise you’ll fail this school year.”

If it’s delivered as a command, then there’s a good chance it’ll get a defiant response. So what to do? Rather than plotting out their offspring’s lives to the minutest detail, parents need to let their children breathe.

Parents should help their children come to informed decisions on their own.

As a rule, parents tend to think they know best. As a result, many of them have a habit of making big, life-changing decisions for their children, excluding the kids themselves from the process.

Let’s say a girl – we’ll call her Chelsea – has recently transferred from a public school to an expensive private one. She’s deeply unhappy and wants to go back to her old school to be with her old friends and teachers. But her father insists that she stay put. In the end, he thinks, she’ll thank him. She’ll get great grades and go on to have a successful career.

Anxiety rubs off on children, so parents should try to cultivate a calm presence.

Parents worry about their children. They always have. But today, technology provides even more ways to keep track of kids’ movements and more information about potential threats. A mother can closely monitor the progress of her child’s first bike ride on Google Maps. A new dad can look up all kinds of deadly diseases when his baby has a minor rash. It’s no wonder many parents have become intensely anxious. And even worse, all this anxiety is seeping into their children.

The key message here is: Anxiety rubs off on children, so parents should try to cultivate a calm presence.

Children need technology-free time.

Unwittingly passing on anxiety to their children is just one of the things parents need to worry about. Another major concern is the overuse of technology.

If you’ve been around any children lately, you’ll know how omnipresent technology is in their lives. For some children, half an hour away from a screen will provoke something like panic. And why not? Adults have become reliant on their smart devices; it’s natural that many children have integrated them as another body part.

Many kids aren’t ready for college.

So your child is in her final few years of high school and has begun to look forward to the prospect of college. All her friends are planning on going too, and she’s been working hard to make sure that she gets the grades.

Deep down, though, you know that she isn’t quite ready; she’s isn’t yet mature enough for the experience. She’ll get there, sure, but probably not by the time she’s 18.

Academic success isn’t the only route to fulfillment.

So your child has failed his geography exam, and he won’t get that coveted place at Harvard. It’s the end of the world – any dream of future success and happiness is over for him. He’ll be resigned to a life of mediocrity and drudgery . . . won’t he?

Well, no. Of course he won’t.

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Worum geht es in The Self-Driven Child?

The Self-Driven Child (2018) shows us how our instinct to control our children’s lives can result in stressed-out, uncooperative, and poorly motivated kids. Instead, the book argues, we should try to help our children come to informed decisions themselves – and trust them to make the big calls.

Wer The Self-Driven Child lesen sollte

Parents of stressed, overworked kids
Child psychologists and pediatricians
Anyone interested in the complex dynamics between parent and child

Über den Autor

William Stixrud is a clinical neuropsychologist and founder of The Stixrud Group, a group of clinical psychologists. He is a member of the teaching faculty at Children’s National Medical Center and an assistant professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine.

Ned Johnson is the president and founder of PrepMatters, a tutoring and educational advising company in Washington, DC. He has been featured on NPR, NewsHour, U.S. News & World Report, as well as in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Time.

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