The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids – I read this book this summer (it was suggested reading for the parents at our school). It was written by Madeline Levine, a psychologist in Marin who sees an endless line of unhappy teenagers, and she suggests that we need to let our kids have time for thoughtfulness, to think, to be needed. Parent over involvement with their children’s lives is actually counterproductive. They need to get to know their innerselves – figure out what they really think, not what their parents think or what their friends think, but what they really think. It is a thoughtful book, and is especially applicable to the children in our geographic region. Note: Madeline Levine will be speaking at Woodside High School on October 17th, 2007 for the Common Ground Speaker Series.
