3.17.2014

How Much Do Parents Determine Their Children’s Success?

The author presents the following main conclusions:

  • parents put too much on their short-run comfort and too little on long-run satisfaction. 
  • “parents picture kids as clay they mold for life, when they’re actually more like flexible plastic that responds to pressure, but pops back into its original shape when the pressure is released.”

I think the author completely fails to address that the self-other patterns of functioning are tremendously important variables that determine the impact that parents have on their children. Just think for a minute on the cases where parents have anxiogenic patterns of functioning with their children and how that can impact their self-development; or, on the other extreme, parents that teach principles in a robust manner, where the child feels empowered by a vicarious experience that makes sense. 

There is so much to this discussion that the points addressed just feel short of enlightening the questions that they are supposed to answer.

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