How Would You Describe "American Parenting"?

Over indulgence and training for entitlement.

Me personally.....I am training my kids to be people. Citizens...I try to keep things as simple as possible. They get what they need....And we make up the rest as we go along.

My kids are home grown, grass fed and love running with the dirt between their toes.....I think that is more the region honestly:)But this area is very easily pleasing for a hippie chick and her folk of merry men:)

Too often, one of extremes - horrible negligence vs. over-indulgence.

Hard to find that "middle road".

Oftentimes, too child-centered. Other times, not child-centered enough.

I agree with "diverse". I know people who are maddengly overindulgent. They don't want to ruin Junior's widdle self-esteem so they never tell Junior no. They wonder why their 5 yr old screams obscenities at them - because they don't filter and scream at their children! How to get a kid to behave? YOU behave first! Some of them were not ready to BE parents so they are ill equipped to raise their children, and it is sad.

Then there are the other parents that are so strict that their kids can't breathe or are so stressed out they have ulcers. Kids so overscheduled for fear of not succeeding or getting into trouble that they don't know how to BE a kid. They know advanced math, but not how to play. That's sad, too.

And then there's me and my close friends who, while we don't always agree on the specifics, generally try to discipline, teach, guide and encourage. DD will not always be first in line. SD will not always get the lead in the play. SS won't always get the job. But they also know we love them, will listen to them, will try to let them make their own mistakes and will push them to prioritize their education and keep trying. We'll fight for them when they really need it and tell them to fight for themselves when it's not our battle. We try to balance letting them fly with guiding their flight path. Are we perfect? No. But I think we are doing a better job of raising children for this society than those who either have a short leash or none at all.

I've stated before, I don't think any one society has the lock on perfect kids. I think the ends of the spectrum get a lot of attention but there are a lot of people in the middle who are doing just fine.

hmm too much scheduling. being taught everyone is a winner and there are no losers. electronics, educational toys, competitive (my kid is reading at age 4. so what. by 12 i assure you most kids will be reading)
:)

Uptight, bizarre, high pressured, punitive and child centered.

Uptight - kids are not allowed to play in the dirt, recognize that furniture has actual corners and that running sometimes involves falling down. Kids can't play in their own yards and walk home from school because adults are paranoid - the world (on a local level) is no more dangerous than it used to be.

High pressured - kids are pushed to use 'educational' toys, participate in 12 organized activities by age 4, have homework by kindergarten.

Punitive: Apparently all actions must be accompanied by 'consequences' and time outs. A rigid behavioral approach to discipline seems fairly universal. What ever happened to letting kids work out their differences (of course some coaching can be needed)? What happened to talking to children and explaining what is right and what is wrong? Of course rewards are simply the flip side of this rigid approach - put away your toy - get a sticker, huh? And if all else fails, just hit the kid (did I leave out consistency?)

Child centered - why does every restaurant in this country have a children's menu? And why are they all identical? Where did this ridiculous idea of 'child friendly' food come from? And who exactly invented Chuck E Cheese, bounce places and these awful kid party places? Birthday parties occur at the home of the birthday child, parks are available for children and adults.

Bizarre - how the combination of these things exists is completely incomprehensible to me. And to think I was completely unaware of this entire culture just 6 years ago :)

Anything goes and everything is criticized.

IMO, most people think they have the "lock-down" on perfect parenting and can't wait to share it with anyone who thinks differently.

I think it is as diverse as the cultures we have hanging around here.

I always think it is interesting that the only time I come in contact with the helicopter style is on these boards. Around here no one parents like that. We do have a fair few of the oh isn't junior talented, he can walk and chew gum kind of parents. I ignore them and if they get in my face I tell them no worries, just keep doing what you are doing, someone needs to keep my fries hot in 20 years.

That tends to confused them because they just got done lecturing me about how I am destroying my child's self esteem by not making their kindergarten graduation a priority. Yeah, okay. *rollseyes*

I think American parenting is stereotyped as the look at me type of parenting because that is what makes up most self help books. Do this and your children will have amazing self esteem. Sure they will never be able to live on their own because they actually don't know how to make a decision but they will be happy in your basement playing world of warcraft well into their 40s. :p

So, American parenting is the ability to look at other parents and say with conviction, that is stupid. We raise our kids the best way we know how accepting that we are going to mess them up just like our parents messed us up and part of growing up is therapy. :)

I see the younger generation of American moms totally into promoting their kids in every activity the child participates in. They want extended family members to attend every birthday party, soccer game, dance recital, and cheer for every minor accomplishment. I am shocked at the number of grandparents who attend juniors first band recital and reserve the the entire front row of seats for just their family. In essence, they demand the 'best' for their kids at every turn.

Then I come here and read some terribly sad cases of kids being batted back and forth between broken homes....and the clueless parents as to why junior is acting out.

So the American family is either over-indulgent or fractured.

But, not us.

dana K nailed it! a bouquet of flowers!
i don't know about my region, but i run with a lot of unschoolers because that's what makes up the majority of my homeschool community. i love unschooling but don't so much love the total lack of boundaries it often encompasses. i think education can be child-led and wide open without being accepting of all sorts of behavioral excesses. i think children find boundaries comforting and that they make a vast, scary, incomprehensible world safe and negotiable without overwhelming them before they're ready to handle it. i wish more parents understood that boundaries are not a Bad Thing.
but outside my rather liberal hippy bubble i still see a lot of screaming and slapping. me no like.
but the most pervasive 'new parenting' style that i've seen arise in my lifetime is the helicoptering. kids have zero opportunity to explore the world without someone crawling right there in their space with them. they never learn to negotiate with other kids without interference. they never fall down or get pushed or swipe another kid's toy or move up and down their natural hierarchies without mamabears roaring in.
and then we wonder why they can't quite make their own way in the world when they're cut loose.
khairete
S.

In my region, I don't notice the great parents so much, because the kids aren't making waves. There are quite a few though, because my daughter's Christian PreK had REALLY nice kids. The parents there worked mainly blue collar jobs, attended the affiliated church, disciplined their kids, and the school also had very firm rules about behavior. The "progressive" school in a neighboring "nicer" town she was in before that was packed with whiny tantrummy, hitting little nightmares with their parents wrapped around their fingers. The parents were very "educated" university alumni who were lenient and thought their little eggshells were oh-so-fragile. There is a large fairly rough (I daresay redneck) element in our town who yells at, berates, and probably gets way too physical with their kids. Lots of these young kids seem to be wandering around bored and aimless after school, smoking on their porches by age ten...and there is a big drug problem with teens in my town. So. We have all types.

Having traveled a lot throughout my life, I think many Americans are more "experimental" in their approach, and tend to buy into the post 80's positive parenting movement and many offshoots thereof way more than older countries like Germany, France, India and Japan where I have spent time. In these places, kids are respected as people by being included in society and not regarded in such a "Wow, how can we possibly raise kids and re-invent the wheel a billion times on everything they need?" mentality, and as such, kids are held to higher expectations with discipline because bad behavior is no new phenomenon to them. They seem much more permissive in some areas than we are, and much more punitive and direct in others. Seems to me to be a good combo, and we sort of emulate it in our home.There are exceptions in those places too of course, and there are bad parents everywhere, but most of my American peers -as in closest friends- spoil their kids imo and their kids act very poorly.

There is no such thing as "American parenting". There are vastly diverse ways of parenting in our country. I think the idea that there is "French parenting" is just as ridiculous. But it IS selling books isn't it....

In a word? Having lived in 9 or 10 other cultures? Comparatively?

Uptight.

We're not a child-friendly nation.

Competitive on all fronts.

I think it depends on the culture. America, being the melting pot, results in different cultures and races. This can be broken down into Jewish parenting, Asian parenting, Spanish parenting, etc. In other words, microcosms of the world that makes us the melting pot.

LAZY.
Spoiled
and
Entitled.
No one is OWED anything , you have to work for it and today's parents aren't teaching that.

I think there are a lot of factors to "American Parenting"...my style is different than my moms...but yet I still believe in the same concepts. I just go about it very differently than she did.

I think like others have said that it's cultural but I also think other factors play a huge role...socio-economic, single parent, dual parents (both split homes and families living together), age.

I think if we had one style here, we would not be America...

I think Riley summed it up. Uptight is a great way to describe American Parenting. This isn't just recent. My FIL was a pilot and my husband lived/traveled all over the world. Outside the U.S. bathing suites are optional and it's not a big deal. When my husband was 2 years old, my MIL left him nude to roam around at a beach in Hawaii and in California. She was harassed at both places and had several people comment to her that he should be in a diaper or swim suit. She wasn't used to that as she'd been living overseas for years. That was only one example, but I have many current ones I could use. Many of my friends are pretty uptight and take life seriously. Not saying everyone is like that, but if you had to look at the majority.......

Interesting question.
Interesting too that Riley said "uptight".
Obviously it varies a lot and I generally hate it when people try to lump together a description of Americans. But we do have a culture of believing everyone can make it to the top by working hard, so I think we pressure our kids to succeed and pressure ourselves to make sure we give them every advantage along the way. From what I understand, in most other places around the world kids would have a lot more free time and parents would spend a lot less time stressing about what schools to send them too, etc.
We also hear about bad parents being negligent, but "good" parenting seems very cautious- like "don't dig in the dirt, there could be lead", "don't sit in the sand box there's germs", "don't climb that- you could fall". So I agree, for my region anyway, Uptight.

Diverse.

It is just to expect as this country is diverse on so many other topics, I think.
I like it too, I look back and even my parenting has change so much with my second daughter, part of my own learning and part for what I have hear from many kind of people.

How would you describe "American Parenting"?
Bizare