The Coddling of the American Mind - Review and Summary

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The Coddling of the American Mind is an eye-opening explanation of how certain well-intentioned efforts of parents, schools, and societies to protect young people have led to debilitating outcomes for Generation Z. The majority of the book consists of an explanation of how we got to this place where our young adults seem to lack the skills necessary to productively navigate the social and emotional challenges of adulthood. The “what” and the “why” of this problem make up the bulk of the book and are described systematically through a series of related concepts established by a growing body of research, including that of the authors. But the book isn't all exposé. Lukianoff and Haidt close with several chapters of optimism. Specifically, actionable advice on how we (as parents, teachers, school administrators, etc.) can help our kids and young adults obtain the necessary skills and tools to grow (rather than hide) from adversity and disagreement.

The Great Untruths

The authors identify three “Great Untruths” as the key culprits in the weakening of American youth:

  1. The untruth of fragility: "What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker."

  2. The untruth of emotional reasoning: "Always trust your feelings."

  3. The untruth of us vs. them: "Life is a battle between good people and evil people."

The proliferation of the Great Untruths can be traced to six main causes:

  1. Increasing political and group polarization. It’s easier than ever to remain in one’s own group bubble, resulting in an increased likelihood of seeing those with differing views as evil and wrong.

  2. The rising rates of depression and anxiety among adolescents. This rise is due in significant part to (a) frequent use of smartphones and electronics, (b) intensified “safetyism” culture (i.e., the idea that a kid’s safety is of paramount importance and that the concept of safety applies not to just physical harm, but to the effects of words and ideas that should be avoided), and (c) less unsupervised time, which reduces the child’s ability to achieve important life milestones and autonomy.

  3. Overprotective, paranoid parenting. Overprotecting children harms them. Children are manifestly “anti-fragile,” meaning that as they deal with setbacks, challenges, and risks with minimal supervision they become stronger, more resilient, and better equipped to overcome greater challenges ahead. Depriving children of those experiences of autonomy hinders their development into strong, competent, independent adults.

  4. The decline of unsupervised free play. Free play is required in order for children to “finish the intricate process of neural development” necessary to make them socially and physically competent adults. Free play helps children develop important skills around cooperation and dispute resolution. Insufficient free play is shown to lead to anxiety disorders and unhealthy levels of intolerance toward risks. The decline of free play is caused by several factors, including (a) parents’ unrealistic fear of strangers, (b) rising emphasis on testing and homework, (c) increased competition in university admissions, (d) a societal deemphasis on physical and social skills, and (e) high availability of smartphones that facilitate pseudo-social experiences.

  5. The growth of campus bureaucracy and the expansion of its protective (safetyism) mission. A combination of good intentions, federal mandates, concerns over lawsuits, and market pressures (from students paying very high tuition rates) have resulted in a rapid growth in the number and duties of school administrators. They’ve largely taken a “better safe than sorry,” CYA approach that has led to policies that restrict speech, encouraged students to report one another based on emotional discomfort, and insert administrative authorities into student disputes. All of this fosters a culture of safetyism and promotes the Untruth of Fragility and the Untruth of Emotional Reasoning.

  6. A misapplied commitment to social justice. People’s intuitive notions of justice include two major types: distributive justice and procedural justice. Distributive justice is about achieving a ratio of outcomes to inputs that is equal for all participants. Procedural justice is about how decisions are being made and how people are treated during the process of administering justice. When social justice efforts are consistent with both distributive and procedural justice, we call it proportional-procedural social justice. Proportional-procedural social justice aims to (a) remove barriers to equality of opportunity and (b) ensure that everyone is treated with dignity. Alternatively, when social justice efforts aim instead to achieve equality of outcomes by group at the expense of distributive or procedural fairness, these equal-outcomes social justice efforts violate most people’s sense of intuitive justice. Unfortunately, ideas, policies, and efforts around equal-outcomes social justice are increasingly common, especially on college campuses.

Where We Go From Here

The authors suggest several remedies for combating the Great Untruths, as follows.

Remedies for kids and teens at home and at school.

  1. Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child. Give children meaningful opportunities to be independent, demonstrate new capabilities, take risks, be alone, and to experience how to disagree and debate productively.

  2. Teach children the cognitive and social skills necessary to temper emotional reasoning. This includes teaching kids the basics of applying cognitive behavioral therapy/techniques in moments of stress or unhealthy thoughts and teaching them to practice mindfulness.

  3. Help kids and young adults develop a common-humanity way of thinking. Teach kids to give others the benefit of the doubt and to practice the virtue of intellectual humility. Seek out schools that teach common-humanity politics over common-enemy identity politics.

  4. Help schools avoid the Great Untruths. Parents can seek schools that, and encourage schools to, (a) assign minimal homework, (b) provide more recess with less supervision, (c) discourage the use of the word “safe” outside the context of physical safety, (d) have a no-devices policy, (e) protecting or expanding recess, (f) cultivate intellectual virtues (i.e., the “qualities necessary to be a critical thinker and an effective learner”), (g) teach debate and offer debate club (to learn the skills of civil disagreement), (h) assign reading and coursework that promote reasoned discussion (e.g., a media literacy class).

  5. Limit device time. Research indicates that heavy amounts of screen time are associated with bad social and mental health outcomes. This is a complicated issue and there are several factors that improve by limiting device time (more sleep, less FOMO, more time performing tasks that build lasting confidence and mood, etc.).

  6. Support the norm of service before college. The authors suggest that, “High school graduates can spend a year working and learning away from their parents, exploring their interests, developing interpersonal skills, and generally maturing before arriving on campus. The year after high school is also an ideal time for teens to perform national service as a civic rite of passage.”

Remedies at Universities.

  1. Help students entwine their identity with freedom of inquiry. Colleges should review and ensure their policies are consistent with the First Amendment. College presidents and top administrators should establish a practice of not responding to public outrage and not permitting the “heckler’s veto” to silence minority viewpoints.

  2. Pick the best people for the mission. Colleges should admit more older students that have shown an ability to live independently. Colleges should admit more students from schools that have a track record of effectively teaching critical thinking skills and other “intellectual virtues.” Colleges should include value statements about the value of “viewpoint diversity” in their diversity statements.

  3. Orient and educate for productive disagreement. Colleges must explicitly reject the untruths of fragility, emotional reasoning, and us versus them.

  4. Draw a larger circle around the community. As colleges emphasize common goals, shared fate, and common humanity, its students will better see one another as fellow human beings, treat one another better, and better appreciate one another’s contributions to the community. As Pauli Murray wrote, “When my brothers try to draw a circle to exclude me, I shall draw a larger circle to include them.”

Remedies Across Society.

  1. Recognize that social media is a big part of the problem and that we must be thoughtful in adapting how we live with it in our society, just like we do for things like cigarets and junk food.

  2. Spread the norm of allowing kids to engage in unsupervised play.

  3. Rethink identity politics in a way that emphasizes synergies and teamwork across disparate groups rather than reinforcing tribalism.

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You probably won't find The Coddling of the American Mind in the Parenting or Education sections of libraries or bookstores. But it belongs on every parent's, teacher's, and school administrator's reading lists nonetheless. This will definitely remain a go-to resource for my wife and me as we navigate the daily challenges of parenting.