ﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠLast week I had the opportunity to hear West Coast psychologist Madeline Levine speak at The Association of Independent Maryland Schools annual meeting for Heads of School. Since I had just finished reading her thought-provoking and heart-breaking recent book entitled The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids, I was particularly interested in hearing her presentation. In her book as well as in her talk, Levine noted that upper middle class affluent adolescents - those from families whose incomes begin at about $120,000 - suffer from the highest rates of psychopathology among any socioeconomic group in America. In fact the rates of depression, substance abuse, and psychological disorders for this group qualify as an epidemic according to criteria established by the Centers for Disease Control.
ﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠThe teenagers that Levine is focused on generally perform quite well in school and in extra curricular activities. They have involved parents, are usually socially quite adept, and enjoy seemingly every material advantage. As she stated in her talk, “These are the kids who look incredibly good on the outside, but when you roll up their sleeves, you see they are bleeding underneath” - sometimes literally. She told the emblematic story of one such fifteen year old patient who seemed to have everything going for her. She was bright, personable, attractive, “highly pressured by her adoring, but frequently preoccupied, parents, and angry.” When Levine noticed that the girl was constantly pulling her long sleeve t-shirt halfway over her hand, she discovered that her patient had “used a razor to incise the word EMPTY on her left forearm.”
ﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠHere is how Levine describes the underlying dynamic:
ﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠ“Money is not the culprit. Money does not contribute to emotional problems in our children. It doesnot foster depression, anxiety disorders, or substance abuse. It is the culture of affluence - a culture that embraces materialism, that values performance over learning and external motivation over internal motivation, that overemphasizes competition and offers a dearth of opportunities to see adults behave with compassion and integrity - that is sickening our children.”
ﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠLevine goes to great lengths to document her assertions. She notes that until about sixth grade, upper middle class children do better than the general population in measures of depression, substance abuse, and psychosomatic disorders. However in 7th grade, in public schools, there is a marked upswing in rates of depression, substance abuse, and psychological disorders. By the time they are in 10th grade, independent school children have “caught up” to the epidemic rates amongst all upper middle class adolescents. By the end of high school, affluent girls have three times higher rates of depression and anxiety disorders than their peers from other socioeconomic groups, and affluent boys have substantially higher rates of substance abuse and psychosomatic disorders.
ﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠLevine catalogues a host of forces which contribute to these difficulties. While they are too numerous and complex to cover here comprehensively, they include:
~ pressure to perform and succeed consistently at impossible levels (“it is not good enough for affluent kids to be good at something… they have to be extraordinarily good at things, and not just one thing”);
~ too narrow a definition of what makes for a “successful kid”;
~ motivation coming from the desire to please others rather than developing intrinsic motivation;
~ parents not allowing kids to define themselves and their own interests;
~ parents not allowing children to learn from their mistakes and hence kids not learning resilience;
~ sleep deprivation and exhaustion;
~ widespread acceptance of the myth that the only way kids will have a good life is if they go to particular colleges;
~ not seeing sufficient models of reciprocity, compromise, cooperation, and positive relationships;
~ over-reliance on material goods for happiness and self-worth.
ﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠObviously a situation as complex as the one Levine describes does not have easy solutions. However, she maintains that a powerful start can be made in relatively simple ways. First, parents need to become reflective about the context in which their children are growing up. Instead of allowing their children to be involved in school, sports, tutoring, lessons, and structured activities for the 16-18 hours per day that is the average for upper middle class American adolescents, they need to be certain that their children are sleeping nine hours per night, eating three good meals per day, and eating with their parents at least five nights a week. Furthermore, kids need to have the opportunity to develop responsibility by making meaningful, reasonable contributions to their households through activities like chores. Parents need to provide an “inviting, listening presence rather than frantic, anxious parenting.” They need to focus on process rather than solely on end results. They need to back off from the kind of constant intervention that impairs the development of self-management skills. Perhaps most importantly, parents have to ensure that their children are developing positive connections to others.
ﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠFew parenting messages are as important or as compelling as Levine's. Also, I am convinced that there is critical work that parents of elementary and middle school children can be doing which can serve as a prophylactic against a good deal of what she documents. Thus, I am working on getting her to come speak at our school, I hope sometime during the next academic year. In the meantime, I highly recommend her book and the ultimately hopeful message that it contains: “In order to correct these deficits we need to teach our children that objects can never replace relationships. We need to encourage the development of internal motivation and downplay the importance of external motivation. And, finally, we need to model altruism and reciprocity, both within our families and our communities.”