Under Pressure: Putting the Child Back in Childhood - Softcover

Honore, Carl

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0676978436 ISBN 13: 9780676978438

Publisher: Random House of Canada Ltd, 2009

Synopsis

From the bestselling author of In Praise of Slow comes a fascinating and urgent look at childhood today and how we are raising a generation of overprogrammed, overachieving, exhausted children.

For generations of children, growing up was a pretty simple business: you went to school for a few hours a day, you dabbled in hobbies and sports, and the rest of the time you played. Or maybe you just day-dreamed. Carl Honoré explains how our modern approach to children is backfiring: our kids are fatter, more myopic, more injured, more depressed and more medicated than any previous generation. By using children as a way to relive our own lives, or as a way to make up for our personal shortcomings, we have destroyed the magic and innocence of childhood. Under Pressure is not a parenting manual but a call to action; we must do better for our children.

Using fascinating anecdotes about obsessive parents (including one about the father of a tennis player who drugged all his child’s opponents), solid research and personal insight, Honoré explains the over-parenting phenomenon, dispels myths and rallies for change in clear and persuasive prose. Topics explored include the use of technology as babysitting, how enrolling children in hours of extracurriculars every week can do more harm than good and how we underestimate the resilience of our children at the expense of their freedom.
From the Hardcover edition.

About this title

Review:

The book is at its best when it tackles different approaches to child rearing and education and confronts the reality of the ever more sophisticated methods used by the corporate sector to target under-age consumers (Fiona Millar THE GUARDIAN)

A fascinating take on a subject that involves us all and makes truly though-provoking reading (GOOD BOOK GUIDE)

Enjoyable and thought-provoking book (CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE NOW)

Carl Honore examines child-rearing attitudes and actions across the globe, sifting through motivations, behaviours and consequences of modern parenting methods, seeking a way forward to a new dawn when we can encourage our children to slow down, develop at their own pace and just act their age (DAILY RECORD)

Book Description:

The acclaimed author of the Sunday Times bestseller In Praise of Slow reveals how families are struggling to cope with the changing world of parenting and childhood, and offers some new solutions

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House of Canada Ltd
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0676978436
• ISBN 13: 9780676978438
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 292