The Coddling of the American Mind

by Greg Lukianoff

  We are also mindful that children are “complex adaptive systems,” as we described in chapter 1. They are not simple machines. We have shown many examples in this book of well-intended reforms that backfired, beginning with our example of banning peanuts to protect kids from peanut allergies. We therefore offer these suggestions with the caveat that any effort to change one part of children’s lives can produce unexpected effects in some other part. More research is needed, but we think these suggestions are likely to be helpful. We hope to start a conversation among parents, educators, and researchers, and we’ll track that conversation on our website, TheCoddling.com.

  We organize our advice under six general principles. The first three are the opposites of the Great Untruths.

  1. Prepare the Child for the Road, Not the Road for the Child

  The first of the three epigraphs that we used at the beginning of this book summarizes the book’s most important single piece of advice: Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child. That is eternally good advice, but it became even better once the internet came along and part of the road became virtual. It was foolish to think one could clear the road for one’s child before the internet. Now it is delusional. To return to the example of peanut allergies: kids need to develop a normal immune response, rather than an allergic response, to the everyday irritations and provocations of life, including life on the internet.

  You cannot teach antifragility directly, but you can give your children the gift of experience—the thousands of experiences they need to become resilient, autonomous adults. The gift begins with the recognition that kids need some unstructured, unsupervised time in order to learn how to judge risks for themselves and practice dealing with things like frustration, boredom, and interpersonal conflict. The most important thing they can do with that time is to play, especially in free play, outdoors, with other kids. In some situations, there may need to be an adult nearby for children’s physical safety, but that adult should not intervene in general disputes and arguments.4

  In that spirit, here are some specific suggestions for parents, teachers, and all who care for children:

  Assume that your kids are more capable this month than they were last month. Each month, ask them what tasks or challenges they think they can do on their own—such as walking to a store a few blocks away, making their own breakfast, or starting a dog-walking business. Resist the urge to jump in and help them when they’re struggling to do things and seem to be doing them the wrong way. Trial and error is a slower but usually better teacher than direct instruction.

  Let your kids take more small risks, and let them learn from getting some bumps and bruises. Children need opportunities to “dose themselves” with risk, as Peter Gray noted. Jon’s kids love the “junkyard playground”5 on Governor’s Island, in New York City. It lets children play with construction materials, including scrap lumber, hammers, and nails (after the parents sign a long liability waiver). On their first visit, Jon watched from outside the fence as two ten-year-old boys pounded nails into lumber. One of the boys accidentally hit his thumb with the hammer. The boy winced, shook his hand out, and went right back to pounding nails. This happened twice and did not deter the boy. He learned how to hammer nails.

  Learn about Lenore Skenazy’s Free-Range Kids movement, and incorporate her lessons into your family’s life. Remember the first-grade readiness checklist from 1979 that asked whether your six-year-old can “travel alone in the neighborhood (four to eight blocks) to store, school, playground, or to a friend’s home?” Start letting your kids walk places and play outside as soon as you think they are able. Send them out with siblings or friends. Tell them it’s OK to talk to strangers and ask for help or directions, just never go off with a stranger. Remember that the crime rate is back down to where it was in the early 1960s.

  Visit LetGrow.org, the website for an organization that Skenazy cofounded with Jon, Peter Gray, and investor/philanthropist Daniel Shuchman.6 The site will keep you up to date on research, news, and ideas for giving your kids a childhood that will lead to resilience. One of our simplest ideas: Print out a “Let Grow License” like the one below,7 then send your kids out into your neighborhood with less fear that they will be detained by busybodies who might call 911.8 Learn what the laws in your state require by typing “state laws” into the site’s search box.

  I AM A “LET GROW” KID!

  Hi! My name is _______________

  I am not lost or neglected. I have been taught how to cross the street. I know never to go off with strangers . . . but I can talk to them. (Including you!) The state allows parents to decide at what age their child can do some things independently. Mine believe it is safe, healthy and fun for me to explore my neighborhood. If you do not believe me, please call or text them at the numbers below. If you still think it is inappropriate or illegal for me to be on my own, please:

  Read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

  Remember your own childhood! Were you under adult supervision at every moment? Today’s crime rate is back to what it was in 1963, so it’s safer to play outside NOW than when you were my age.

  Visit the website LetGrow.org.

  Parent’s Name _______________

  Parent’s Signature _______________

  Parent’s Phone _______________

  Alternate Phone _______________

  Encourage your children to walk or ride bicycles to and from school at the earliest ages possible, consistent with local circumstances of distance, traffic, and crime. Ask your school to provide a way for kids to check in and check out, so parents can keep track of children who travel to school independently without having to give them a smartphone to track them directly.

  Help your kids find a community of kids in the neighborhood who come from families that share your commitment to avoid overprotection. Find ways for kids to get together in nearby parks or in specific backyards. You’ll need to work out boundaries and guidelines with other parents to be sure that the kids are safe from major physical risks, that they know to stick together and help one another, and that they know what to do when someone gets hurt. Kids are likely to develop more maturity and resilience in such groups than in supervised playdates or adult-organized activities.

  Send your children to an overnight summer camp in the woods for a few weeks—without devices. “The old-fashioned generalist camps are where we see the most impact in terms of letting children develop their own interests,” Erika Christakis says, “where kids can make choices about what they do and don’t do.”9 YMCA overnight summer camps often fit this description, but even some narrower, interest-driven summer camps do, too—and many offer scholarships. The key, according to Christakis, is for children to be free of adult “guidance” or concerns about skill-building. Let them play and do things because they are interested, while practicing the “art of association” that de Tocqueville remarked on in 1835.

  Encourage your children to engage in a lot of “productive disagreement.” As psychologist Adam Grant notes, the most creative people grew up in homes full of arguments, yet few parents today teach their children how to argue productively; instead, “we stop siblings from quarreling and we have our own arguments behind closed doors.” But learning how to give and take criticism without being hurt is an essential life skill. When serious thinkers respect someone, they are willing to engage them in a thoughtful argument. Grant offers the following four rules for productive disagreement:10

  Frame it as a debate, rather than a conflict.

  Argue as if you’re right, but listen as if you’re wrong (and be willing to change your mind).

  Make the most respectful interpretation of the other person’s perspective.

  Acknowledge where you agree with your critics and what you’ve learned from them.

  2
. Your Worst Enemy Cannot Harm You as Much as Your Own Thoughts, Unguarded

  Children (like adults) are prone to emotional reasoning. They need to learn cognitive and social skills that will temper emotional reasoning and guide them to respond more productively to life’s provocations. Especially now that the internet guarantees that they will have to deal with trash all along the road of life, it is vital that they learn to notice and manage their emotional reactions and choose how to respond.

  The second epigraph at the start of this book came from Buddha: “Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded. But once mastered, no one can help you as much, not even your father or your mother.” Our advice is based on this insight.

  Teach children the basics of CBT. CBT stands for “cognitive behavioral therapy,” but in many ways it’s really just “cognitive behavioral techniques,” because the intellectual habits it teaches are good for everyone. Parents can teach children the basics of CBT at any age, starting with something as simple as getting in the habit of letting children watch parents talk back to their own exaggerated thoughts. A technique Greg learned involves practicing hearing his anxious and doomsaying automatic thoughts as if they are being said in funny voices, like Elmer Fudd’s or Daffy Duck’s. It may sound silly, but it can quickly turn an anxious or upsetting moment into a humorous one. Greg and his wife, Michelle, practice this with their two-year-old, as a way of calming everyone down during moments of stress.

  Dr. Robert Leahy, the director of The American Institute for Cognitive Therapy,11 suggests that when children are upset and may be subject to cognitive distortions, parents can walk their children through the following exercise:

  Let’s take this thought that you have and ask some questions about it. Sometimes we have a thought about someone and we think we are absolutely right. But then this way of thinking makes us upset and makes us angry or sad. Thoughts are not always true. I might be thinking it’s raining outside, but then I go outside and it’s not raining. We have to find out what the facts are, don’t we? Sometimes we look at things like we are looking through a dark lens and everything seems dark. Let’s try putting on different glasses.12

  Parents can get an accessible overview of CBT from reading Dr. Leahy’s book The Worry Cure. Also, Freeing Your Child From Anxiety, by Tamar Chansky,13 is recommended by the Beck Institute,14 which is another great resource for cognitive behavioral therapy. There are many books, blogs,15 curricula, and even cell phone apps for practicing CBT. Two apps that are rated highly by the Anxiety and Depression Association of America are CPT Coach (for those who are in active treatment with a therapist)16 and AnxietyCoach.17

  Teach children mindfulness. According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, professor of medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, “mindfulness” means “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.”18 Research indicates that establishing a mindfulness practice reduces anxiety, diminishes stress reactivity, enhances coping, benefits attention, increases compassion (and self-compassion), and strengthens emotion regulation. Researchers see improvements in children’s in-school behavior, test anxiety, perspective-taking, social skills, empathy, and even grades.19 Children and teens who engage in mindfulness practices are better able to calm themselves and be more “present.”20 For more information and some easy mindfulness exercises for parents and children, see The New York Times “Mindfulness for Children” guide, by David Gelles,21 and Cognitively-Based Compassion Training from the Emory-Tibet Partnership.22

  3. The Line Dividing Good and Evil Cuts Through the Heart of Every Human Being

  The third epigraph at the start of this book came from The Gulag Archipelago, the memoir of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Russian dissident of the Soviet era. In 1945, Solzhenitsyn criticized Joseph Stalin in private letters sent to a friend. He was arrested and sentenced to hard labor in the network of gulags (prison camps) spread out across Siberia, in which many inmates froze, starved, or were beaten to death. Solzhenitsyn was eventually released and exiled. In one moving passage, describing a time soon after his arrest, he is being marched for days with a few other men. He reflects upon his own virtue, his “unselfish dedication” to the motherland, when it occurs to him that he himself had nearly joined the security service (the NKVD, which evolved into the KGB). He realizes that he could just as easily have become the executioner, rather than the condemned man marching off to his possible execution. He then warns his readers to beware of the Untruth of Us Versus Them:

  If only it were so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.23

  How can we raise wiser children who will not fall prey to the Untruth of Us Versus Them and the self-righteous call-out culture it breeds? And how can teenagers and college students themselves create and foster a common-humanity way of thinking?

  Give people the benefit of the doubt. Use the “principle of charity.” This is the principle in philosophy and rhetoric of making an effort to interpret other people’s statements in their best or most reasonable form, not in the worst or most offensive way possible. Parents can model the principle of charity by using it in family discussions and arguments.

  Practice the virtue of “intellectual humility.” Intellectual humility is the recognition that our reasoning is so flawed, so prone to bias, that we can rarely be certain that we are right. For kids in middle or high school, find the TED Talk titled “On Being Wrong.”24 The speaker, Kathryn Schulz, begins with the question “What does it feel like to be wrong?” She collects answers from the audience: “dreadful,” “thumbs down,” “embarrassing.” Then she notes that her audience has actually described what it feels like the moment they realize they are wrong. Until that moment, the feeling of being wrong is indistinguishable from the feeling of being right. We are all wrong about many things at every moment, but until we know it, we are often quite certain that we are right. Having people around us who are willing to disagree with us is a gift. So when you realize you are wrong, admit that you are wrong, and thank your critics for helping you see it.25

  Look very carefully at how your school handles identity politics. Does it look and sound like the common-humanity identity politics we described in chapter 3? Or is it more like common-enemy identity politics, which encourages kids to see one another not as individuals but as exemplars of groups, some of which are good, some bad? If the school is using a curriculum developed by an outside organization, find out which one, and look closely at the website of that organization to see whether they embrace a common-humanity or a common-enemy approach. If you are concerned that the school is leading students to embrace the Untruth of Us Versus Them, and you are a parent, express your concerns to the principal. If you are a high school student, see whether any of your peers have concerns about this, too. Brainstorm ways to bring a common-humanity perspective to your school.

  4. Help Schools to Oppose the Great Untruths

  Efforts made by parents have a greater chance of success if schools share parents’ concerns about defeating the Great Untruths, and these efforts will be undercut if schools adhere to the Great Untruths. If you are in a position to influence policy at a school—as a teacher, as an administrator, or as a parent—you can have an enormous impact. Here are a few suggestions for educational changes related to the problems we covered in this book. We begin with ideas for elementary schools:

  Homework in the early grades should be minimal. In the early grades, it’s always good to encourage kids to read with their parents and on their own, but homework beyond that should not intrude on playtime or family time. Other than encouraging reading, minimize or eliminate all homework in kindergarten and first grade. In later elementary grades, homework should be simple and brief. As
Duke University psychologist and homework expert Harris Cooper puts it:

  In elementary school, short and simple homework can help reinforce simple skills. Further, short and simple homework can help younger students begin to learn time management, organizational skills, and a sense of responsibility, and can help keep parents informed of their child’s progress. But for elementary school children, the expectation of big improvements in achievement from long assignments is likely to be unmet.26

  Give more recess with less supervision. Recess on school property generally provides an ideal and physically safe setting for free play. However, as we’ve noted, when adults are standing by to resolve disputes or stop children from taking small risks, this may breed moral dependency. To see an example of the positive effects that can come about when kids are entrusted with much greater autonomy at recess, search the internet for a video titled “No Rules School,”27 about a New Zealand elementary school principal who gradually removed adult supervision from recess so kids could have “risky, unmanaged play.” Kids there climb trees, make up their own games, and play with boards, scraps of wood, and junk. Kids get to calculate risks, take chances, and experience real-world consequences. Of course, there are (by intention) risks here. To implement this policy, much needs to be worked out regarding physical safety and preventing bullying. But if discussions about recess policies began with a screening of that video, the conclusions reached would likely be more aligned with the concept of antifragility. (In fact, the principal of the New Zealand school reports that bullying has gone down since instituting no-rules recess.) A simple way to give kids more unsupervised play time in a physically safe setting is to create an after-school play club by keeping the playground (or a gymnasium) open for a few hours after school each day.28 Such free play, in a mixed-age setting, may be better for kids than many structured after-school activities. (It is surely better than sitting at home after school interacting with a screen.)