natural family living, natural home,  natural home magazine, natural parenting, natural family

Featured Advertisers: Natural Products Guide | Birthstone Jewelry

Why the changes to the site?
We look a bit messy while make some extreme changes to the look and the way we publish the website.
 
Scroll down to continue to enjoy our great articles!

We're your "how-to" resource for natural family living, natural beauty, natural home, health & wellness, and natural parenting. No matter what your personal or parenting style, we offer tips, tools and information everyone can use!
Why do we have advertising on our site?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NFO Home
Bookmark us
NFO Chat Groups
Can't find what you need? Use our web search function near the bottom!
Subscribe to NFO's free eNewsletter!
Natural Living
Natural Living
Entertaining & Holidays
Natural Beauty
Natural Pets
Product Reviews
Book Reviews
<empty> 
Health & Wellness
Health & Wellness
Children's Health
Natural Soulooooo
Vegetarian Lifestyle
Food 
<empty> 
Parenting
Attachment Parenting
Babies & Children<empty> 
Breastfeeding 
Natural Family Living
Pregnancy & Birth
<empty> 
Free Baby Website - Affordable Baby Web Site
FREE safe and secure baby & toddler websites!
<empty> 
Shopping/Info.
Buy Books!
Mountain Rose Herbs
FREE Baby or Child Website
Balter Catalogue Co.
Shopping 
Resource Links
<empty> 
<empty> 

Contact
Contact & Reprints
NFO Staff & Contributors
Advertise with us
Writer's guidelines
<empty> 
Google ads are not personally selected by our admin team.
Find out more.

Attachment Parenting Article
Join our newsletter for new article updates!


Are Your Giving Your Kids Hurried Child Syndrome?

By Dr. Gail Gross

Many parents and professionals alike are being warned today that hurrying children through childhood can have harmful effects. In a culture that stresses success, children are bombarded daily to grow up too quickly -- and in fact, many psychologists believe that growing up too fast can have devastating effects.

In an era of technological and media advances, children are often portrayed as little adults. However, if children are offered the stresses of adulthood, they will also exhibit the ailments of adulthood.

Consequently, psychiatric units are filled today with a new breed of troubled youngster. Pediatricians are finding more children with stress-related diseases such as ulcers by the age of 7, as well as sleep disorders and bedwetting. Suicide and depression are no longer restricted to adults but have found their way into the child’s community. And children have blocked their leaning skills with anxiety promoted memory lapses and an exaggerated fear of failure.

Paralyzed by fear of failure
This has great implications for educational policy as well as practice. As a new underachiever is created, a new problem in education is created based on the child so anxiety-ridden that he cannot perform. Teaching will have to address this problem and find an educational practice to engage it successfully.

Furthermore, these children are less likely to risk because success is directly connected with parental approval. These children can’t live up to their parents’ expectations, which are often unrealistic and are connected with media hype. Additionally, single parents and two-career families push their children as they push themselves and give their children a feeling of unworthiness.

Hurrying children has become a widespread trend all across the United States. Ultimately, it is parental influence in relation to their children’s values that has the opportunity for a positive influence on their children’s grades.

Overexposure to academic experiences
Dr. David Elkind, the author of the Hurried Child and a professor of child study at Tufts University, has written quite extensively on this topic. Elkind states, “Americans expose their children to overwhelming pressures, pressures that can lead to low self esteem, to teenage pregnancy and even to teenage suicide.”

His research suggests that students' activities and relationships with their parents are a greater indicator of academic success than hurrying children through early childhood by overestimating their competence and overexposing them to academic experience. Additionally, Elkind discusses the concept that children who are not ready early are placed in the position to fail. Therefore, Dr. Elkind advises parents to let children be children.

Super Kids and late bloomers
We have become a culture of super everything, including “super kids,” pressuring children into premature adults and making them overly competitive. Because it is not possible to accelerate emotional maturation (since the emotions have their own time clock), children may act grown up, but they don’t feel grown up. In essence, children may appear to speak “adult” while their feelings are crying “child.”

Then there are the late bloomers – children who do not succeed early on. Since these hurried children must be successful, they are perceived as unsuccessful if they can’t compete. As a result, children are stressed to develop academic skills beyond their capabilities and may develop anxiety syndromes to accommodate this stress.

Moreover, parents today face many issues related to their own need to succeed. The multi-job family, the yuppie generation and the Wall Street broker all place a heavy burden on their own psychological well-being.

Unfortunately, they place the same need to succeed on their children. In fact, children who mature later in this stressed child syndrome are often labeled as defective or disabled, when they are simply maturing at a different rate of speed.

Just slow down!
Children have a heavy burden to bear when they feel that their performance is connected with the love they receive, and they are letting down their parents if they are not successful. Additionally, these attitudes carry over into the job world.

That we are a hurried culture and that we hurry our children as we do ourselves is clearly demonstrated in the reflection of our priorities. For example, children today have too many caretakers performing as parents. When this situation occurs from the ages of 2 to 8, children feel rejected because of being left with others. One solution to this problem is to encourage parents to appreciate their children’s feelings. Parents should tell their children that they are going to miss them and that they wish they didn’t have to go away. The message is that being separated is painful but necessary.

Finally, this discussion must lead to the importance of play. Play is an important part of childhood and must not be hurried or transformed into work. In essence, pure play is needed to reduce stress and experience joy. Adults must not turn play into work and must not teach children during their play period. In effect, play fosters creativity better than store bought toys. And self-expression is very important. In the final analysis, childhood is a significant part of life, and it should be both respected and valued. Children are entitled to their childhood and should not be hurried through this stage.

© Dr. Gail Gross

Read more about the value of true play.


A former teacher, Dr. Gail Gross is a nationally recognized expert, author and lecturer on juvenile education, behavior and development issues. Visit Dr. Gross at DrGailGross.com.

 

<empty> 
<empty> 
<empty> 
<empty> 
<empty> 
<empty> 
Google ads are not personally selected. Find out more.
 

Google
 
Web www.naturalfamilyonline.com

Natural Family Online Home Baby Care Feeding Baby Solids Parenting Teens
FREE Baby or Child Website Baby & Kids' Teeth Flu Articles PMS Articles
Free NFO eNewsletter Baby Sleeping Gentle Child Discipline Positive Parenting
NFO Chat Groups Babywearing - Baby Slings Homeopathy Articles Potty - Infant
Balter Baby Breastfeeding Information How to Use Homeopathy Potty Learning - Potty Training
Balter Catalogue Company Breastfeeding Problems Homeschooling Articles Pregnancy Health
Balter Wholesale Company Breastfeeding Milk Supply Healthy Body Pregnancy Homeopathy
Balter Catalogue Blog Breastfeeding - Other Healthy Home Pregnancy Morning Sickness
NFO Shopping Pages Breastfeeding in Public Healthy Mind & Mental Health Pregnancy Nutrition
Natural Family Resource Links Breastfeeding & Thrush Health & Wellbeing Pregnancy Problems
Natural Family Online Blog Breastfeeding Weaning Herbalism Pregnancy & Relationships
Blame Mama Zine Children & Healthy Eating Internal Cleansing Pregnancy Articles
Blame Mama 411 Circumcision - Circumcise Kid's Education Reading to Kids
Disclaimer and user agreement Cloth Diapering Kids & War Sleep Articles
<empty> Co-sleeping & the Family Bed Natural Cleaning Stress Articles
<empty> Dad Articles Natural Family Lifestyles Unschool Articles
<empty> Diaper Rash Natural Family Meals Vacation Articles
Natural Family Article Index Do it Yourself Gardening Natural Family Planning Vaccination Articles
Alcoholism & Homeopathy Do it Yourself - Home Natural Labor & Delivery Vitamins & Minerals
ADD - ADHD Do it Yourself - Hygiene Natural Parenting Winter Health & Family Articles
Attachment Parenting articles Do it Yourself - Kid's Crafts Natural Soul - Home Articles Women's Health
What is Attachment Parenting? Emotional Intelligence in Kids Organic Food Articles Yoga Articles
Baby & Child Natural Remedies Exercise Articles Parenting Stress <empty>

© 2003, 2004, 2005 Blame Mama Media All Rights Reserved. Web Hosting by Blame Mama Media. Most Graphics by .