The first article I read over for my paper was the article “Controlling Childhood” and this basically covers everything I had questions about. First off, it explains why parents feel the need to “hover” over their children. Parents feel the need to keep them safe from all of the evils of the world, and never want them to experience feelings such as humiliation or failure. They will train their children to be seemingly “perfect” so they never will fail. This article then explains that children need to experience these things so they can learn from it. If a child jumps off a rock and gets hurt, they will learn to either jump off the rock a safer way, or learn not to jump off the rock. The controlling parents that don’t let their children explore are not teaching them anything. Children need to explore the world to actually learn anything for themselves. The article next talks about “over-scheduled” children. Parents seem to over book their children with sports and academics to “build them the perfect resume.” It seems all the parents are worried about are their children’s applications to college. If their child can get into a good school, they can achieve anything. And by forcing them to play these sports and join these clubs, it seems as they will get into those schools. Finally this article talks about how schools are also setting their standards higher for children, which in fact gives them less time to explore, and be themselves. The article says, “In order to raise academic achievement, schools have largely eliminated unstructured play in kindergarten. Many schools have cut out or sharply reduced recess as well.” This loss of free time goes back to making the child rely on adults again. They need time set aside for themselves so they can experience life.
Crain, William. "Controlling Childhood." Encounter 2008: 3+. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 7 Oct. 2010.
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