Introduction From June Cleaver to Desperate Housewives-How Did We Get Ourselves into This Mess? Your six-year-old and his pal are playing the video game Conker's Bad Fur Day about a cute little squirrel. Your kid begged for it, so you gave in. But now you're horrified: the sweet little squirrel is getting drunk at a bar, throwing up, and then blacking out, swearing profusely all the while. The pediatrician begins, "I'm concerned that your daughter is anorexic." This must be a mistake, you think. She's only eight, but deep down you know the doctor is only confirming what you've suspected for some time. Your twelve-year-old barrels into the kitchen. "Sorry I'm late, Mom," she begins. "Some eighth grader threatened to kill the teachers because he flunked a test. And he even had a gun! Can you imagine?" No, you can't imagine at all. Ah, the joys of raising our next generation! Frankly, I can't imagine any other job that is more challenging and rewarding, frustrating and joyous than parenting. It's perhaps the most significant role we'll ever have (we're talking about raising a human being, for Pete's sake) and also the only one that doesn't require a single credential. And it's the kind of job that you can finally sort of figure out how to do right-by the time you're done. From the everyday challenges like getting your kids to brush their teeth, say "please," or make their beds, to the more worrisome issues, such as drinking, sexual promiscuity, or eating disorders, raising kids has never been easy. But many people feel that it has gotten harder over the last few years. In a recent poll, 76 percent of the respondents said they felt that parenting is getting much tougher and that it is far more difficult to parent now than when they grew up. You probably won't get an argument with most folks on that one, but here is a statistic of greater concern: about 60 percent of adults also feel that today's parents are not measuring up to the standards set just a generation ago.1 In fact, most Americans feel that moms are doing a far worse job than their own mothers did just twenty or thirty years ago. (If I haven't hit a nerve so far, this next one should do it.) What's more, the majority of moms and dads today agree with their low performance ratings and feel that they've been unsuccessful in their parenting endeavors.2 But the situation gets even more troubling: many parents confess that they aren't even enjoying their kids! One-third of the parents in one survey said that if they were to do it all over again, they would not start a family.3 For the past few decades, I have watched this troubling parenting trend unfold, and I have to tell you that I'm greatly concerned about the state of the American family. I've spent my professional life in the field of child development, and all those varied experiences helped form my beliefs. I earned a doctorate in educational counseling and psychology and a master's degree in learning disabilities. I have taught emotionally and physically challenged kids and kids with learning disabilities; I have also taught gifted and talented students, and briefly had a private practice for troubled kids. I've worked as a consultant in hundreds of schools and organizations around the globe, spoken to thousands of parents at workshops, personally worked with scores of kids, wrote a number of parenting books, and raised three great sons (spoken like a proud mom and by far my best training). Through those years, I focused on infants through tweens. Then I became a contributor to NBC's Today show, and I suddenly gained a whole new perspective that dramatically stretched my views. The topics I was asked to report on often dealt with tough, news-breaking issues facing adolescents, such as depression, stress, sex, and risky teen behaviors. Preparing for each segment (over seventy at this point) allowed me an incredible opportunity to comb stacks of new research. What I saw was a very troubling trend in the lives of American kids: they were having problems coping, bouncing back, and handling life-particularly as they left home and had to fend for themselves. One segment confirmed it all. I was on the Today set with Meredith Viera. It was December, and students who had finished their first college semester were coming home for the Christmas and New Year's break. I was there to warn parents that new research showed that more than 50 percent of freshman college students felt so depressed that it was difficult for them to function.4 Suicide rates were soaring-in just that one year alone, there was a 114 percent spike among adolescents, girls in particular. Counselors predicted many freshmen would never graduate because their mental health needs were so severe. Ironically this was the same group that experts said had the closest relationship with their parents: much loved, indulged, coddled, and unable to deal with life independently. That was my "aha" moment: how these young people had been parented hadn't done them any favors. Each additional Today segment I did showed the same troubling trends: stress rising, risky behaviors increasing, peer pressure and bullying skyrocketing. Something was amiss in American Kidsville. But it turned out that parents' weren't fairing well either. NBC asked me to be a parenting contributor for the iVillage online community and write a blog called Dr. Borba's Parenting Solutions. I've since posted dozens of articles and also received scores of e-mails from moms seeking advice. But there was a clearly discernible difference between these queries and those I had received in the past. These mothers were more stressed and worried-even overwhelmed. They were trying so hard. Wanting so for their kids to be happy and successful. Their love and intentions were there, but they were also doing so much for their kids that they were forgetting to take care of themselves. What I saw over and over was a lack of confidence in their mothering. These moms were always second-guessing themselves and seemed to spend a lot of time comparing themselves and their kids with other moms. Around the same time, I reported results from a Parenting magazine survey on the Today show, and it was déjà vu. In that survey, 96 percent of mothers admitted feeling stressed; 73 percent felt that yesterday's moms had it easier; and 67 percent felt that yesterday's mothers were happier.5 Don't get me wrong: we clearly are doing some things right. For starters, today's children are smarter. Their IQ scores are even increasing.6 (Really!) All those extra tutors and pricey extracurricular activities seem to be paying off (by the way, American kids are now the most scheduled in the world7), but at a stiff price. By all benchmarks, today's children are sadder;8 more materialistic,9 narcissistic,10 anxious,11 stressed,12 disrespectful, 13 and ill behaved; and poorly prepared to cope with life.14 And that's just for starters. Deep down I think most parents realize that their kids aren't turning out as well as they'd dreamed. It's a big reason why many feel so darn guilty and stressed out and are just not enjoying their family life. It's also why so many lack confidence in their job performance and are turning to others for reassurance and pointers on parenting. (We'll get to those a bit later.) But for now let's explore how we got ourselves into such a sorry state-what's causing the breakdown of our children's mental health, behavior, and character, and the rise of our own stress, the lack of confidence in our parenting abilities, and our unhappiness in our role.

THE PROBLEMS WITH MOST MODERN-DAY PARENTING APPROACHES

Over the last few decades, there has been a major change in how we raise our kids, and the descriptions of modern-day parenting are far from flattering. Try these for starters: helicopter parenting, incubator parenting, snowplowing, paranoid parenting, hyper-parenting, and accessory parenting. I can't help but envision kids on their knees praying for someone to stop the insanity. In just a matter of a few decades, we've morphed ourselves from Marion Cunningham of Happy Days to characters in Desperate Housewives. No wonder Judith Warner called modern motherhood "perfect madness."15 In all fairness, our more frantic, super-octane-charged mode is at least partly due to today's culture. June Cleaver or Carol Brady didn't have to deal with such hair-raising issues as cyberbullying, school shootings, online predators, and Facebook when they raised their broods. Nor would Clair Huxtable or Laura Petrie have read any parenting book including such serious issues as school-age children's eating disorders, depression, and worrying about the world. But let's get beyond the culture for a minute, because that isn't the only thing that has changed. We're also raising our kids differently, and our new approaches aren't doing them any favors. In fact, many of these approaches contradict over fifty years of solid research that shows what kids really do need for solid character, emotional health, and fulfillment. Several modern-day child-rearing approaches are so toxic to effective parenting that I call them the Seven Deadly Parenting Styles. I am convinced that using them is a big part of why we're so darn dissatisfied, stressed out, and lacking confidence in our parenting.

THE SEVEN DEADLY...