I recently finished this book by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. Normally this would not be my kind of book, but I saw Haidt on Bill Maher and really enjoyed what he had to say and really wanted to learn more.
I thought the book was pretty damn good. The basic premise is that the rise of college students screaming at professors, protesting speakers, or needing safe spaces is caused by the over-coddling of parents.
They go through a bunch of examples of this happening on campus then lay out why this new generation (Gen Z or the iGen) is different from millennials.
One of the big things they talk about is unstructured play and allowing kids the chance to explore and take risks. This is a topic I have read about from a few other sources (I think they actually cite a few of them) and it really strikes me as something that just makes sense.
Some of the stuff they talk about in the book, I see so many parents doing now. It scares me because they are coming from a place of good intentions, but there are definitely consequences. I mean, kids need to fall down at times, they need to experience pain, physical and emotional. Yeah, it sucks, but these things are necessary.
I think one of the big points is the children are not fragile. They are actually pretty resilient if you allow them to experience and learn.
I highly recommend the book if you are either a parent to a young child or someone who worries about the future of our society.
