You Can’t Raise Children in Two Different Ways and Expect the Same Result

For more than fifty years, Americans have been told that parenting should be more child-centered, more therapeutic, and more focused on self-esteem and feelings. But what if those ideas have produced exactly the opposite of what was promised?

In this lecture recorded at Chautauqua Institution in July 2022, I make a simple argument: you cannot raise children in two entirely different ways and expect the same outcome. The generation raised before the parenting revolution of the late 1960s grew up under a very different set of assumptions—assumptions that, in my view, produced stronger families and more emotionally resilient children.

Drawing from my own experience as a psychologist, parent, and grandfather, I explore how American child-rearing changed, why it changed, and what we’ve lost along the way.

Recorded July 18, 2022, at Chautauqua Institution as part of the Advocates for Balance at Chautauqua lecture series.