How do American parents

Author: Elizabeth Guttman
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-06-01
Features: This is a book about parents' strong desire for their children to succeed. What are the consequences of pressuring children or having overly high expectations for their success? This book will show you how to break free from this behavior and establish a healthy and beneficial family education model. Based on her nearly two decades of clinical experience, Dr. Guttman analyzes the negative outcomes of competitive parenting styles. For parents who want their toddlers to learn foreign languages or demand that first-grade students excel in all activities, this book can tell them that placing too high expectations on children during early education often leads to failures in their future lives. The pressure parents put on their children can cause them to lose their natural inclinations and curiosity. When children are pushed, the message they receive from their parents is: they cannot make the right decisions on their own; appearance is more important than the heart; obtaining a diploma or a good reputation is more important than real-life experiences. Dr. Guttman attempts to depict the differences between good family education and "pushy" family education, and she clearly explains the fallacy of society viewing average-intelligence children as "imperfect" or "failures." For parents concerned about their children's education, the book offers the advice that allowing children's natural inclinations to develop freely is very practical.