Frequently Asked Questions

Excerpted from an Interview with Dan Kindlon, Ph.D.

So tell me about the Parenting Practices at the Millennium Survey? Why did you do it?

The main purpose of the survey was to identify risk factors for the kinds of problems teenagers often have. I was interested not only in headline problems like substance abuse and eating disorders but also emotional problems like depression and anxiety. What was more unique about my study was that I also focused on problems with character development - things like being self-centered, spoiled, or slothful.

So basically, in the same way that a researcher studying heart disease wants to identify factors like lack of exercise or a high fat diet that increase the risk of a heart attack, I wanted to identify some risk factors for adolescent issues such as weak character, depression, and eating problems.

Who took the survey and what did it ask?

My research assistants and I gave questionnaires to 650 teenagers asking them about many facets of their lives - things like are they happy, do they get along with their parents, do they drink or take drugs. We also asked them what kinds of things they owned - for instance do they have their own cell phone, a car, how much allowance do they get. And we were especially interested in what was required of them by their parents - are their parents strict about having them keep their rooms clean, or helping with the dishes. Do they have a curfew? We gave a similar survey to over 1000 parents with questions asking whether they think their children are happy, did they buy them a cell phone, or how strict they are. This sample included not only parents of teenagers but also parents of younger children.

I should add that the people I studied were not poor; most were upper middle class and some were wealthy. The children we studied attended private schools or suburban public schools located in different regions of the country - the far west, midwest, south, mid Atlantic and northeast

Why study the affluent? Aren't the kinds of problems you're talking about more common among the disadvantaged?

The answer to your question really has two parts. First is that it is not necessarily the case that one can help the disadvantaged only by studying them. In Too Much of A Good Thing I use a quote by Ruby Bridges, the African American girl who integrated an all white school in Mississippi in the 1960's. As she put it it's the "rich folks who decide how the poor folks live". Part of my interest in studying character development among the affluent is that, unless there is some kind of seismic shift in our political culture, they will be the ones occupying the most influential positions in society. Many of them will be able to make a difference in the lives of the disadvantaged.
The second part of the answer to your question is no, not necessarily. That is while there are many adolescent problems, such as juvenile crime or teen pregnancy, that are more common among the disadvantaged, there are many problems that are not. Alcohol and drug use, for example, is more common among affluent adolescents. Our research also showed, for example, high levels of depression, and anxiety among the kids we studied.

How high? Give me a brief encapsulation of what your survey found.

This will have to be brief because there are a lot of interesting findings. Some of the more interesting in terms of the prevalence of problems were that around 40% of the teenagers said that they were seriously depressed but when we asked the parents if they thought their child was depressed, very few thought they were. Regarding anxiety - about 1 of every 4 teenagers could be classified as very worried. Around 60% of the kids had used tobacco, alcohol or other illegal drugs during the past month. About 1 in 4 have very permissive attitudes towards premarital sex. Lastly, the majority of parents - around 60% - say that their child is spoiled and a fair number of their children agreed with them.

The majority of these upper middle class parents admitted that their children were spoiled? That surprises me. I would have thought that they would have denied it.

Perhaps many of them did. The actual percentage may be higher. An interesting sidebar to this is that a near majority of parents also acknowledged that they are less strict than their parents were. It didn't really matter what part of the country they were from or whether they were middle class or a millionaire, somewhere between 40 to 50 percent of parents said that they are less strict than their parents were.

Why are parents less strict? What do you think is going on?

A complete answer to that question would take longer than we have; I spend a lot of time discussing reasons in the book, but let me highlight a few things. I think that these survey results show what many people feel, that there has been a cultural shift over the last generation in terms of parent - child relations. I think that many parents today having grown up under the influence of Vietnam, Watergate, and other cultural cataclysms of the 60's and 70's are more distrustful of authority than their parents were and as a result they are less comfortable wielding power over their children. Then of course there is the fact that people have less time. In fact work obligations was the most common obstacle given to being a better parent by both mothers and fathers. It is often the case that both parents work and because they spend less time with their kids than they'd like, they may feel guilty and as a result not require their kids to do things that they should. Also a large number of parents today are simply too tired to do the hard work it takes to be a good parent. You can clean your child's room in 10 minutes, but it make take you a half an hour of struggle to have them clean it themselves.

Then there is the issue of this generation of parents being more likely to depend on their children to give meaning to their lives, to make their lives fulfilling. It is a kind of a children-as-Prozac phenomenon. We use our children's happiness to make us happy, so we are reluctant to be strict about their behavior in ways that would upset them or jeopardize our relationship with them. Also, because families tend to be smaller now, each child becomes that much more precious. We want to protect our children from all kinds of pain; we try to make their lives perfect. I think also that psychologists have contributed to this in leading parents to believe that if their child becomes upset, it will lead to emotional damage.

So are you saying that pain is good for kids?

In a way, yes. If a child never experiences the pain of frustration, of having to share a toy or wait their turn in line or if they are never sad or disappointed, they won't ever develop psychological skills that are crucial for their future happiness. I think that there is a direct parallel between this and the body's immune system. There is a lot of research showing that we will never fully develop disease defenses or immunities if we aren't exposed to certain viruses or toxins at a young age. It is important for children to develop their psychological immune system as well or they will have a very hard time effectively coping with emotional stress when they get older.

And is this what your study showed, that kids whose parents weren't strict had more problems than the kids with stricter parents?

Basically, yes. But it also depended. Remember, the study looked at many different adolescent problems.

Give me some examples.

O.K., take drug use. The factors that make it more likely that a teenager is using drugs are the teen's parents aren't strict about things like swearing and monitoring the movies they watch or the video games they play, that the family doesn't regularly eat dinner together, and finally that the child says he or she is spoiled. Or take depression, 2 of the risk factors for depression are that the child is not required to do chores for his or her allowance and again that the family doesn't regularly eat dinner together. Or take self-centeredness - a child is more likely to be self-centered if he or she gets an allowance without having to do anything for it.

Were their any teenagers that didn't have any problems? If so what were they like?

Yes there were. About 12 percent of the kids didn't have any of the problems we studied. They didn't use drugs, they weren't mean, lazy, self-centered, or spoiled, they weren't anxious or depressed, and, unlike many of their peers, they didn't think it was OK for a 13 year old to have oral sex. There were 5 factors that distinguished them from everyone else. 1) their families frequently ate dinner together, their parents weren't divorced, they had to keep their room clean, they weren't allowed to have a phone in their room, and they regularly did community service.

What specific advice can you give parents?

Well I think the set of results I just mentioned are a good place to start. I think the results lead directly to action. They show that what children need is TLC - Time, Limits, and Caring. Regarding time, our results show that eating dinner together, as a WHOLE family is important - it reduces this risk for developing problems. In terms of limits - being firm and consistent about chores like keeping ones room clean is important. If a parent will be consistently strict about even just one chore, their child will be better off. And caring - really listening to what your child is saying and demonstrating that you believe that caring for others is important through actions such as doing community service.

Is there anything else that you'd like to add?

Yes, and that is that while most parents will say that what they really want for their child is for him or her to be happy, they act in ways that put their child at greater risk for unhappiness. From all the research I've read and from the results of the PPM survey, it is clear that children will have a greater chance for happiness as adults not because they have a lot of material possessions but because they possess strength of character.