Child and family psychiatrist Robert Shaw wrote a book called "The Epidemic: The Rot of American Culture, Absentee and Permissive Parenting, and the Resultant Plague of Joyless, Selfish Children". Sounds like a stern lecture. The new book on kids questions modern parenting methods, from day care to self-esteem building. I don't have children, but I've seen what Robert's writes:
I believe the parenting trends that have evolved over the last 30 years promote the development of unattached, non- communicative, learning impaired and uncontrollable children. We are experiencing an epidemic of school problems, both learning and behavioral. Teachers everywhere report that children are arriving ill-equipped to engage in school because they lack focus, purpose, connection, an ability to fit into a rules system and a desire to learn. At the extreme, our current culture may well be breeding a generation of unattached, predatory children who may be cognitively smart but who lack the capacity to appreciate the feelings and positions of other people.
I want to give a business card to these kids' parents. Imprinted would be a single word: Norplant. That would be fun to hand out.
A 1,000-year-old sequoia fell Sunday afternoon, 