Much of the narrative of the book delves into the trends at colleges and universities around “protecting” students from ideas and experiences that run counter to their own world-view, which will be the death knell of higher learning if “protection” becomes the default instead of inquiry. Some of the results are finally showing up in ways we can’t ignore: The results are kids who go off to college vastly underprepared to navigate a complex world on their own. Like Jean Twenge in her best-selling iGen, Coddling paints a picture of a generation of children raised by over-protective parents, rushed through over-planned days, pressured to excel on tests in school at very early ages, prevented from gaining the muscle of individual play and invention, and locked in to massive doses of screen time at the expense of social development and human interaction. It is a powerful review, with significant quantitative and qualitative data in support, of the realization that the current generation is less well prepared for the real world than any in the past, and we are all complicit in the problem. If you have not already done so, The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt is a must read for all educators and parents of children between the ages of pregnant and 25.
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