The Myth of the Spoiled Child ─ Coddled Kids, Helicopter Parents, and Other Phony Crises

A prominent and esteemed critic challenges widely held beliefs about children and parenting, revealing that underlying each myth is a deeply conservative ideology that is, ironically, often adopted by liberal parents.

Somehow a set of deeply conservative assumptions about children—what they’re like and how they should be raised—have congealed into the conventional wisdom in our society. Parents are accused of being both permissive and overprotective, unwilling to set limits and afraid to let their kids fail. Young people, meanwhile, are routinely described as entitled and narcissistic. With the same lively, contrarian style that characterizes all of his influential work, Alfie Kohn systematically debunks these beliefs—not only challenging erroneous factual claims but also exposing the troubling ideology that underlies them. Relying on new research and a vast collection of social science data, as well as on logic and humor, he challenges popular parenting myths and argues that, in fact, the major threat to healthy child development is parenting that is too controlling rather than too indulgent.

Alfie Kohn writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. The author of thirteen books and scores of articles, he lectures at education conferences and universities, as well as to parent groups and corporations. Kohn’s criticisms of competition and rewards have been widely discussed and debated, and he has been described inTime magazine as “perhaps the country’s most outspoken critic of education’s fixation on grades [and] test scores.”