A Nation of Wimps
There’s an excellent article in Psychology Today from a few years ago entitled “A Nation of Wimps”. The author lays out, in unflinching detail, all the ways that we try to protect children and how it doesn’t make them strong, but makes them fragile.
From the article:
Maybe it’s the cyclist in the park, trim under his sleek metallic blue helmet, cruising along the dirt path… at three miles an hour. On his tricycle. Or perhaps it’s today’s playground, all-rubber-cushioned surface where kids used to skin their knees. Then there are the sanitizing gels, with which over a third of parents now send their kids to school, according to a recent survey. Consider the teacher new to an upscale suburban town. Shuffling through the sheaf of reports certifying the educational “accommodations” he was required to make for many of his history students
Behold the wholly sanitized childhood, without skinned knees or the occasional C in history.
[Click here to read “A Nation of Wimps”]
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Header photograph by Daquella manera