“Cultural dynamics of perfectionism and overindulgence have now combined to create adolescents who are ultra-focused on success but don’t know how to fail.”
I like the description of parents going from ‘helicopter parenting’ to ‘lawn mower parenting’. With my own family, I see these same things. I am the oldest, and was raised to be autonomous. I left my parent’s house at 17. My much younger siblings lived with my parents into their 30s, even after finding spouses. My younger siblings never really went to college, and I completely overdid. (This is my second masters degree.)
Like most Alaskans, I am too familiar with suicide. I do not think we are thinking enough about how we are talking to young people. Every day I hear about how there are so many more diagnoses these days, and how that is a problem. I hear a portion of the population make fun of ‘snowflakes’ and ‘safe spaces’. And there are kids like DeWitt. Made fun of for needing a safe space, at very least by my racist uncle who thinks we should pull out of the UN and that Roy Moore basically the Kool-Aid Man in a cowboy hat.
The fact that there are names for behaviors such as Penn Face or Duck Syndrome makes me very sad, and I see it in some of the students I am working with right now.