Generation Alpha

I wrote these articles on the other generations years ago, and since I wrote those initial drafts a brand new generation has emerged that deserves our attention.

Born from 2010 onwards, Generation Alpha is the first generation born entirely in the 21st century. They’re the children of Millennials and younger Generation Xers, facing problems that no previous generation has encountered while simultaneously inheriting all the unresolved problems of the generations that came before them.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth that nobody seems willing to acknowledge. Many of Generation Alpha’s problems aren’t of their own making at all. They’re the direct result of broader societal shifts combined with parenting approaches that have fundamentally changed over the past 15 years. We’re seeing failures to parent with intention and consistency, failures to set meaningful boundaries, failures to prepare children for even the most basic demands of daily life, all happening against a backdrop of changing cultural values that prioritize feelings over resilience and validation over growth.

When I started in general practice, well over thirty years ago now, most children starting school could do certain basic things that we simply took for granted as normal developmental milestones. They could sit still for short periods without constant entertainment or stimulation. They could hold a pencil or crayon with reasonable control. They could follow simple instructions without needing them repeated multiple times. They were mostly potty trained by the time they arrived at school. They had learned basic table manners and could sit down for a meal. Perhaps most importantly, they could interact appropriately with other kids and adults, and could be separated from their parents without experiencing complete emotional meltdown.

Now? Teachers report with increasing frequency that growing numbers of children starting school can’t do many of these fundamental things that should have been mastered years earlier. They arrive at reception class still in nappies, seemingly with no sustained effort having been made to toilet train them despite being well past the appropriate age. They’re unable to use basic cutlery to feed themselves. They’re utterly incapable of sitting still for more than 30 seconds without becoming disruptive. Some have absolutely no experience of delayed gratification or an understanding that they can’t have everything they want the instant they want it.

These same children with extraordinary proficiency can unlock tablets and smartphones with ease, they can find their favorite shows on and apps without any help whatsoever. So clearly they’re perfectly capable of learning complex skills when they’re motivated to do so. The problem isn’t that they can’t learn, it’s that they haven’t been taught much of anything that actually matters for functioning as a capable human being in society.

Teaching real skills to children requires significant effort from parents. It requires genuine consistency in approach over months and years. It requires considerable patience when progress is slow or setbacks occur. And many parents of Generation Alpha seem either unwilling or unable to provide these essential things that previous generations of parents somehow managed to deliver, despite having far fewer resources and support systems available to them.

Parents systematically take the path of least resistance at every possible turn, making countless small decisions that individually seem insignificant but collectively create developmental disaster. Your child won’t eat vegetables? Fine, have chicken nuggets for the fifth night running rather than dealing with the inevitable protest and tantrum. Child won’t sit at the table for meals? No problem, just eat in front of the TV and avoid the conflict entirely. Child throwing a tantrum about something they want? Give in immediately to stop the noise and restore peace, never mind what message it sends about how to get what you want in life.

Every single one of these individual choices is completely understandable in the moment when you’re an exhausted parent just trying to get through another day without falling apart. Parenting is genuinely exhausting work. You’re perpetually tired from broken sleep and constant demands. You desperately want an easy life after a long day at work. You really don’t want yet another conflict with a small person who seems to have infinite energy for fighting. I understand all of that.

But the cumulative effect of thousands of these small surrenders over years? You end up with children who’ve never learned to do anything that’s even slightly difficult or uncomfortable. Who’ve never experienced real boundaries that are consistently enforced. Who’ve never developed the basic skills of self-regulation, delayed gratification, and appropriate social behavior that every previous generation somehow managed to acquire.

The Diagnosis Epidemic

Let me be clear about something before we go any further, because I don’t want to be misunderstood here. ADHD is a real neurological condition that affects real children and needs proper diagnosis and appropriate treatment. Autism is a real developmental disorder that exists on a spectrum and requires proper understanding and support. Genuine neurodevelopmental conditions absolutely exist with clear neurological bases, and children who have them need and deserve proper diagnosis, appropriate support, and evidence-based interventions.

But what I’m seeing now in my daily practice is an explosion of diagnoses that genuinely seems to defy statistical probability and suggests something else is going on beyond just better recognition of genuine conditions. In my practice alone, the number of children with ADHD diagnoses has at least tripled in the past decade. Autism diagnoses have quadrupled in the same period. Sensory processing disorders that barely existed 15 years ago have become so commonplace that it sometimes feels like almost every other child has one.

Some of this increase is certainly down to better recognition of genuine conditions and thankfully reduced stigma around seeking diagnosis and support. Some of it may be genuinely increasing prevalence due to factors we don’t fully understand yet, possibly environmental factors, possibly epigenetic changes, possibly relating to shifts in prenatal and early childhood environments. But a significant portion of what I’m seeing appears to be something different. It looks like misdiagnosis of children who don’t actually have neurodevelopmental disorders at all. It looks like normal childhood behavior being inappropriately pathologized and medicalized. It looks like developmental delay caused by inadequate early environments being mislabeled as neurological disorder.

Here’s the uncomfortable question that nobody in the medical or education system seems willing to ask openly, but that we desperately need to confront honestly. If you’ve never actually taught your child to sit still through gradual practice and age-appropriate expectations, if you’ve never taught them to focus their attention through engaging activities and increasing challenges, if you’ve never taught them to follow instructions through consistent reinforcement, and if you’ve never taught them to cope with boredom through developing internal resources, then how can you possibly distinguish with any confidence between a child who has genuine ADHD with its underlying neurological basis and a child who’s simply never been parented in ways that develop these essential capacities?

Similarly, if you’ve never properly socialized your child through regular interaction with peers and adults, if you’ve never taught them to make eye contact through modeling and gentle encouragement, if you’ve never taught them to read social cues through countless interactions and explanations, and if you’ve never taught them to interact appropriately through practice and gentle correction, then how can you distinguish between a child who has genuine autism with its neurological differences in social processing and a child whose social difficulties stem from isolation, inadequate human interaction, and simple lack of teaching?

The answer, when you’re honest about it, is that often you can’t distinguish between these two quite different situations, at least not easily or with any real confidence. These conditions exist on spectrums rather than having clear binary cutoffs. The symptoms can overlap significantly with normal developmental variation and environmental effects. Where you draw the line between “child with inadequate early environment” and “child with diagnosable neurological disorder” has become increasingly blurred, almost to the point of meaninglessness in many cases I see.

Here’s what I know from decades of clinical practice and from carefully reviewing the research literature. Children who are raised with no structure to their days, with minimal boundaries that are inconsistently enforced, with limited meaningful parent interaction beyond basic care, and with poor sleep patterns that are never properly addressed, these children develop symptoms and behaviors that look remarkably similar to ADHD in almost every clinical respect. Children who spend more time alone or passively consuming screens than they do in meaningful reciprocal interaction with actual human beings develop social difficulties that look remarkably similar to autism in their presentation.

So are these children genuinely neurodivergent with underlying neurological differences that would be present regardless of their environment and upbringing? Or have they been made to appear that way by the environment they’ve been raised in, developing symptoms that closely mimic neurological conditions but are actually caused by environmental and parenting factors? In many cases, possibly even a lot of the cases I see these days, we genuinely can’t tell with any certainty. And what’s perhaps worse, we’re not even really trying to figure it out systematically because there’s a perverse incentive structure throughout our entire medical and education system that actively encourages diagnosis and accommodation rather than careful evaluation of environmental factors.

If you’re reading this because you’re worried about your own child, please don’t use this article to rule anything in or out. It’s a description of a pattern I believe I’m seeing across a population, not a diagnostic tool, and it isn’t a substitute for one. If you have concerns about your child’s development, the right next step is a proper assessment with your GP or a paediatrician, not a judgement made from an article.

The Cultural Context

There’s a broader societal shift happening that we need to acknowledge if we’re going to understand Generation Alpha’s difficulties properly. Over the past 10 to 15 years, particularly influenced by progressive movements that have gained significant traction in Western societies, there’s been a fundamental change in how we think about childhood, development, and personal responsibility.

The traditional view, which dominated for generations, was relatively straightforward. Children need structure, boundaries, and gradually increasing responsibility to develop into capable adults. They need to experience appropriate levels of discomfort, disappointment, and challenge to build resilience. They need to learn that the world doesn’t revolve around them and that other people’s needs and feelings matter. They need to understand that actions have consequences and that effort leads to results.

But there’s been a significant cultural shift, particularly visible in education systems and parenting advice that’s heavily influenced by progressive ideology. This new approach, which has its roots in well-meaning attempts to protect children’s mental health and self-esteem, has fundamentally changed how many parents approach raising their children.

We’re now told that children’s feelings must be validated constantly, that any form of discomfort might constitute trauma, that traditional discipline approaches are harmful, that expecting children to conform to adult standards is oppressive, that failure experiences damage self-esteem irreparably. We’re told that if a child is struggling, the environment must change to accommodate them rather than the child needing to develop skills to navigate challenges.

This shift has been particularly pronounced in more progressive, educated, middle-class families who are most likely to be influenced by current parenting trends and educational theories. It’s created an environment where many parents genuinely believe that protecting their children from any negative experience, any disappointment, any struggle is not just kindness but actually their primary parental responsibility.

The problem is that this approach, despite being well-intentioned, fundamentally misunderstands how children actually develop competence and resilience. You don’t build resilience by never experiencing anything difficult. You don’t develop coping skills by never having to cope with anything. You don’t learn emotional regulation by never having to regulate your emotions because adults immediately solve every problem for you.

There’s also been a troubling trend towards pathologizing normal childhood behavior and treating any deviation from perfect compliance or any struggle with typical developmental challenges as evidence of disorder requiring professional intervention. This medicalization of childhood, combined with the emphasis on identity and neurodiversity, has created a perfect storm where getting a diagnosis becomes almost desirable, a form of identity and access to resources rather than a medical determination requiring careful evaluation.

The Excuse Culture

Here’s something that becomes increasingly apparent when you work in primary care and see these patterns repeatedly. For many parents, receiving a diagnosis for their child serves a function beyond just understanding their child’s difficulties. It provides a socially acceptable narrative that shifts responsibility away from parenting choices and onto factors beyond anyone’s control.

The child isn’t badly behaved because of inconsistent boundaries and lack of structure. They have ADHD, which is a medical condition. The child isn’t poorly socialized because they’ve spent their early childhood largely isolated without regular peer interaction. They’re autistic, which is a neurological difference. The child isn’t developmentally delayed due to lack of teaching and an impoverished early learning environment. They have sensory processing disorder, which is a legitimate special need.

A diagnosis fundamentally shifts the narrative from “what could we do differently as parents” to “what support services and accommodations can be provided by schools and society”. It transforms a potential parenting issue into a medical issue requiring professional intervention. And in our current cultural climate, where questioning parenting choices is often seen as judgmental and insensitive, this shift provides welcome relief from uncomfortable self-examination.

Once you have that diagnosis firmly in hand, you suddenly have access to an extensive array of resources that weren’t available before. Support services at school that provide additional help and often reduced expectations. Formal accommodations that excuse your child from normal behavioral and academic standards. Financial benefits in some cases. And perhaps most importantly in today’s social media driven world, access to a ready-made community of other parents who will validate that none of this is your fault, that anyone who suggests environmental factors might be involved doesn’t understand neurodiversity, and that you’re actually an advocate and warrior for your special needs child.

I need to be very clear here. I’m absolutely not questioning the reality of genuine neurological conditions or suggesting that children with real ADHD or autism don’t need appropriate support. They absolutely do. What I’m questioning is the large and apparently growing number of children being diagnosed and accommodated when a careful examination of their early environment and parenting would reveal clear environmental factors that could be addressed through changes at home rather than through medical diagnosis and school accommodation.

When I gently suggest to parents that perhaps we should try addressing some environmental factors first, establishing some structure, setting some clear boundaries, increasing social interaction opportunities, and teaching some basic self-regulation skills before jumping straight to diagnosis and medication, I increasingly encounter resistance framed in terms of neurodiversity advocacy and accusations that I’m being judgmental or that I don’t understand their child’s special needs. The cultural shift has made it very difficult to have honest conversations about whether parenting and environment might be contributing factors.

The Parenting Vacuum

Previous generations certainly had their flaws in their approaches to parenting, and I’m definitely not trying to idealize some imaginary perfect past. Baby Boomers were often emotionally unavailable to their children, focused on providing materially but unable or unwilling to connect emotionally or express feelings openly. Gen X parents sometimes swung too far in the opposite direction, becoming overly protective and anxious after their own latchkey childhoods left them feeling somewhat neglected. Millennials have struggled with helicopter parenting tendencies, over-structuring their children’s lives to the point of suffocation, and being completely unable to tolerate any disappointment or failure in their children’s experiences.

But here’s the critical difference between those previous generations and what we’re seeing now with Generation Alpha’s parents. Despite all their various flaws and limitations and the mistakes they undoubtedly made, those previous generations actually parented their children in meaningful ways. They engaged with their children’s development, even if imperfectly. They were present in their children’s lives in substantive ways. They set boundaries, even if those boundaries weren’t always perfectly calibrated or consistently maintained. They actively taught skills, even if their teaching methods weren’t always ideal. They prepared their children for navigating the world to the best of their ability, even if that preparation wasn’t always complete or particularly effective.

Generation Alpha’s parents? Many of them, particularly those most influenced by progressive parenting philosophies, aren’t actually parenting in any traditional sense at all. They’re facilitating. They’re managing logistics and coordinating schedules. They’re mediating disputes between siblings. They’re negotiating endlessly with small children who’ve never learned that they’re not actually equal partners in decision-making, that adults are supposed to be in charge, and that children need guidance rather than constant negotiation.

Basic parenting tasks that every previous generation somehow managed to accomplish are simply not happening in countless families across the socioeconomic spectrum. Children aren’t learning to dress themselves properly because it’s genuinely faster for parents to do it for them every morning, and nobody has the extra time to deal with the struggle. They’re not learning to feed themselves properly and with good manners because it’s less messy and time-consuming to give them easy foods that require minimal utensil use. They’re not being toilet trained because pull-ups and disposable nappies are more convenient than dealing with accidents and the sustained effort required for proper training. They’re not learning to regulate their emotions appropriately because parents give in at the first sign of distress rather than teaching coping skills and appropriate emotional expression.

Why is this happening on such a seemingly widespread scale? Because raising children properly is genuinely hard work, harder than it’s ever been perhaps given the competing demands of modern life, and many parents have essentially decided it’s simply too difficult to maintain the effort required. Teaching a child to dress themselves takes significant time and patience as they struggle with buttons, zippers, and inside-out clothing day after day, and it’s so much quicker and easier to just dress them yourself when you’re already running late for work. Teaching them to eat properly and with appropriate manners means enduring weeks or months of tantrums about food preferences, dealing with mess on floors and walls, and staying calm through countless difficult mealtimes, so it’s much easier to just give them what they want and let them eat it wherever they want. Teaching proper emotional regulation means sitting calmly with a screaming child and not giving in to demands, maintaining your own composure while they completely lose theirs, and consistently enforcing boundaries through hours of exhausting resistance, which absolutely depletes you when you’re already running on empty.

So parents take shortcuts constantly, at every decision point where there’s a choice between doing the hard work of teaching and taking the easier immediate option. They avoid conflict situations rather than using them as teaching opportunities. They give in to unreasonable demands rather than maintaining boundaries and teaching delayed gratification. They do things for their children that the children desperately need to learn to do for themselves. And they justify all of this by saying they’re too tired, too busy, too stressed, too overwhelmed by the demands of modern life to do the genuinely hard work of actually raising their children properly.

But here’s what nobody wants to acknowledge. Previous generations were tired and busy and stressed too, often considerably more so given they had fewer labor-saving devices, less access to information and support systems, and generally more challenging economic circumstances. And they still somehow managed to parent their children adequately, still taught them essential skills for independent functioning, still prepared them for adult life as best they could.

The Structure Deficit

There’s something absolutely fundamental that’s disappeared in the raising of Generation Alpha, something so basic and essential that previous generations didn’t even consciously think about it as a parenting strategy. Structure. Routine. Predictability. The basic environmental conditions that children need to feel psychologically secure, develop properly, and gradually learn to regulate themselves effectively.

Generation Alpha children often have no consistent bedtime whatsoever, with sleep times varying by several hours from night to night depending entirely on when they eventually crash from exhaustion or when it’s convenient for parents. They have no regular mealtimes where the family sits down together to eat, instead grazing throughout the day whenever hunger strikes or demanding food at random times. They have no predictable structure to their days, with activities and expectations happening randomly based on parental whim or convenience rather than following any kind of routine pattern that they can anticipate and prepare for mentally.

Parents justify this lack of structure in various ways, often using language from progressive parenting philosophies. They claim they’re being flexible and responsive to their child’s individual needs in the moment. They say they’re respecting their child’s autonomy and not imposing arbitrary adult schedules on them. They frame it as child-led parenting that follows developmental principles and respects the child as an individual. They insist they’re avoiding being too rigid or authoritarian in their approach, which they’ve been told damages children’s sense of self and stifles their natural development.

But here’s what the research actually shows, and what I see confirmed in my practice every single day. Children don’t actually thrive on this kind of unstructured flexibility and lack of routine, regardless of what popular parenting books influenced by progressive ideology might claim. They thrive on structure, routine, and predictability. They need to know what’s happening and when so they can mentally prepare themselves for transitions. They need predictable routines that repeat daily so they can develop their own internal regulation systems. They need clear boundaries that are consistent and actually enforced so they know where the limits are and can feel psychologically secure within those limits.

Without proper structure, children become chronically anxious because they genuinely never know what’s coming next or what’s expected of them at any given moment. They don’t feel emotionally secure because their environment is fundamentally unpredictable and chaotic. They don’t develop the absolutely crucial ability to regulate themselves because there’s no consistent external structure for them to gradually internalize. They’re constantly existing in a state of uncertainty about what’s happening, what’s allowed, what’s expected, and what the consequences of their behavior might be, which inevitably manifests as behavioral problems, emotional dysregulation, and general difficulty functioning in any structured environment like school.

The Socialization Failure

Generation Alpha is shaping up to be the least adequately socialized generation we’ve seen in modern history. And whilst COVID lockdowns certainly made things catastrophically worse for a couple of years during absolutely critical developmental periods, the socialization deficit was already becoming apparent well before the pandemic forced everyone into isolation. These children weren’t being properly socialized in ways that previous generations simply took for granted as normal and necessary even before COVID made everything worse.

They’re not learning fundamental social skills like sharing possessions willingly, taking turns in games and activities, losing gracefully in competitions, handling disappointment appropriately, negotiating with peers, or compromising to reach solutions that work for everyone. They’re not developing any of the crucial social competencies that come naturally from regular play with other children, largely unsupervised by adults, working things out themselves through trial and error and countless social interactions.

Why is this massive socialization failure happening? Because parents simply aren’t facilitating the social interaction that children desperately need for normal development. They’re not regularly taking their children to playgroups where they can interact with peers. They’re not going to parks where children naturally gather and play together. They’re not arranging playdates with other families. They’re not creating consistent opportunities for their children to interact with other children and adults in meaningful ways beyond brief supervised encounters. Or if they are occasionally doing some of these things, the parents are hovering constantly over every interaction, intervening immediately at any sign of conflict, preventing their children from having genuine peer interactions where they actually need to work things out themselves without adult mediation.

Children desperately need to navigate social situations relatively independently without constant adult intervention and problem-solving. They need to experience the full range of peer interaction including conflict, rejection, exclusion, friendship formation, cooperation, and competition. They need to work through disagreements themselves, learn to negotiate solutions, experience the natural social consequences of poor choices. That’s fundamentally how they learn the social skills they’ll need for the rest of their lives, and there’s really no substitute for this kind of direct experience.

But many of Generation Alpha’s parents, particularly those influenced by progressive parenting philosophies that emphasize protecting children’s feelings and self-esteem above all else, won’t allow any of this essential developmental learning to happen naturally. They intervene immediately at every conflict, treating any disagreement between children as potentially traumatic. They solve every social problem for their children, robbing them of crucial opportunities to develop their own problem-solving skills. They actively prevent their children from experiencing the entirely normal ups and downs of childhood social interaction, treating minor exclusions, rejections, or friendship difficulties as disasters to be prevented at all costs rather than as normal learning opportunities to be navigated with parental support but not interference.

The Resilience Crisis

Here’s something fundamental that distinguished previous generations from Generation Alpha. They all developed genuine resilience and coping skills because they had to, because life required it of them, because their parents allowed and even encouraged them to develop these capacities through gradually increasing challenges. Baby Boomers dealt with genuine scarcity in their early years, with rationing and making do with less, which taught them resourcefulness and gratitude. Gen X were latchkey kids who figured enormous amounts out entirely by themselves without constant adult supervision, which taught them independence and creative problem-solving. Even Millennials, despite their struggles, navigated significant economic uncertainty and the collapse of previously promised career paths, which taught them a certain kind of adaptability.

Generation Alpha? They’ve never had to deal with anything genuinely uncomfortable or challenging for more than a few seconds because their parents systematically smooth every possible path ahead of them, remove every conceivable obstacle before they even encounter it, solve every problem before the child fully experiences it. And when parents can’t prevent discomfort entirely, they provide instant distraction or immediate gratification to make any unpleasant feeling go away as quickly as possible.

You want to understand why Generation Alpha seems to completely lack resilience and coping skills? It’s because they’ve never had any meaningful opportunity whatsoever to develop these capacities through experience. They’ve never been genuinely bored for longer than about 30 seconds because entertainment is instantly and constantly available through devices. They’ve never had to sit with any uncomfortable feeling or emotion for any length of time because parents or screens immediately soothe any distress. They’ve never failed at something and had to persist and try again and again without immediate success or reward because parents prevent failure experiences or immediately fix problems for them. They’ve never experienced significant disappointment without having it instantly smoothed away by parents doing whatever it takes to restore their child’s happiness.

They’ve been raised with the absolute expectation that they deserve instant gratification whenever they want anything, that they’re entitled to constant entertainment and stimulation to prevent any moment of boredom, and that they should receive immediate relief from any negative emotion no matter how minor or temporary. And then somehow everyone acts completely surprised and confused when these children can’t cope with the most basic, entirely normal challenges of childhood that every previous generation handled without any particular difficulty or need for professional intervention.

Moving Forward

Generation Alpha is still young, still in their formative years of development. There’s still time to course-correct, to change direction, to address these concerning patterns before they become permanently entrenched. But it’s going to require parents to acknowledge some genuinely uncomfortable truths about how broader cultural shifts and changing parenting philosophies may have contributed to their children’s difficulties.

It’s going to require establishing proper structure in children’s lives through consistent daily routines that repeat predictably. Setting age-appropriate boundaries and actually maintaining them even when children protest loudly. Teaching essential skills for independent functioning even when it’s slower and more difficult than just doing things for them. Being willing to let children experience appropriate levels of struggle, disappointment, and challenge rather than constantly smoothing every path.

It’s going to require properly socializing children through regular, meaningful peer interaction. Facilitating opportunities for children to play together without constant adult supervision. Allowing children to navigate normal social challenges and conflicts largely independently, providing support and guidance but not immediate intervention and problem-solving.

And perhaps most importantly, it’s going to require a willingness to honestly examine whether environmental factors and parenting approaches might be contributing to children’s difficulties before automatically assuming that every struggle represents a neurological condition requiring diagnosis and accommodation. That’s genuinely uncomfortable for many parents, especially in our current cultural climate where questioning parenting approaches is often seen as judgmental and where it has become difficult to have honest conversations about whether children’s difficulties might be environmentally caused rather than neurologically based.

Generation Alpha genuinely deserves better than what many of them are currently receiving. They deserve parents who are willing to do the genuinely hard work of actually raising them properly with appropriate structure, boundaries, and teaching. They deserve to develop the resilience, competence, and emotional regulation that previous generations acquired. They deserve to be prepared for adult life in a world that, whatever its other problems, still requires people to be able to function independently, cope with disappointment, delay gratification, and navigate challenges without constant support and accommodation.

These children are inheriting a world with genuine challenges. They’ll need resilience, adaptability, and strong foundations to navigate what lies ahead. What too many of them are getting instead is developmental delay that could have been prevented, behavioral difficulties that stem from environmental factors, and parents who’ve been influenced by cultural shifts that prioritize short-term comfort over long-term development. That’s the concerning reality of Generation Alpha. The unready generation. Unready not because they’re incapable, but because we’ve collectively failed to provide them with what they actually need to develop properly. And unless things change, they’ll face the consequences of these failures throughout their lives.

Further reading

  • Gray, P. (2013). Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier. Basic Books.
  • Sax, L. (2016). The Collapse of Parenting: How We Hurt Our Kids When We Treat Them Like Grown-Ups. Basic Books.
  • Skenazy, L. (2009). Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children. Jossey-Bass.
  • Haidt, J., & Lukianoff, G. (2018). The Coddling of the American Mind. Penguin.
  • McClelland, M. M., & Cameron, C. E. (2012). ‘Self-Regulation in Early Childhood.’ Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 33(1), 32–40.

Similar Posts

  • Generation Z

    I’m Generation X, but I was spending too long at work to have kids early enough for them to be Millennials. My kids, however, belong to Generation Z. Generation Z were born after the turn of the century. They’re post-9/11. They’ll inherit debt from the financial crisis. They’ll face global warming, and the transition from…

  • The Baby Boomers

    This article leads us into looking at each generation in turn, so that we can understand those generations a bit better, so that we can see where we ourselves fit, and where we can use our skills from the generation we fall into to benefit us in society today. Let’s start with the oldest generation…

  • The Precariat

    You’ve read about the generations — Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, Generation Z, Generation Alpha. You’ve seen how each generation faces its own challenges, how cultural shifts are reshaping everything. Now we need to talk about what happens when all of these forces converge on real people living real lives. We need to talk about…

  • Abundance

    “Ooooh,” I groaned, tilting my head slightly and letting my voice rise just a touch at the end of the sentence. “Your joints must be telling you something?” I was deliberately using what’s known in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and Ericksonian Hypnotic language as a selectional restriction violation. Her joints couldn’t actually talk to her,…

  • An Introduction to Society

    You don’t exist in a vacuum. You’re part of something bigger, whether you want to be or not. Society shapes you, your choices, your problems, your possibilities. Understanding how society works, understanding where you fit within it, understanding the forces acting on you, that’s not abstract academic stuff. It’s essential context for understanding why you’re…

  • The Wokeness Trap

    You’ve probably noticed something’s changed in the past decade or so. Maybe you’ve felt it at work, where you’re suddenly walking on eggshells around certain topics. Maybe you’ve seen it in your kids’ schools, where the curriculum can also focus on identity and the oppression of certain views rather than just learning. Maybe you’ve watched…