>>>>Kids today are spoiled. Back in my day we had to dope ourselves up ! I do recall we were pretty sure we needed psychotropic drugs.
>>>>
>>>>( I do agree with your serious point to a point but I think that while the diagnosis and prescription is often just lazy medicine - and quick fix parenting - properly used things like Ritalin and some anti-depressants and more serious drugs for bi-polar disorder etc can prevent tragedy. My personal cause, from my own experience, is the problems of extremely high functioning children with ADD who are usually never diagnosed but whose lives can be extremely negatively impacted nonetheless )
>>>
>>>(emphasis mine)
>>>
>>>There have been a number of recent books with the common theme that American parents are guilty of overparenting. They (we) are so focused on giving our children the best of everything they often grow up without the necessary coping skills for successful adulthood. The parents do things for them that they would be better off doing themselves. An example in one of the books describes an 8 year old girl in a primitive tribe who is responsible for stacking the leaves that are the family's crop and for making the family dinner every day. It isn't that American kids are not capable of doing the same, it's that they are so seldom asked. Give them everything so they know how much they are loved. And yes, I think I was guilty of this myself (although IMO both my daughters turned out well).
>>>
>>>UPDATE: Here is a link to the article. And I see the girl was not 8 but 6.
>>>
>>>http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/07/02/120702crbo_books_kolbert
>>
>>aka "affluenza"
>
>I don't think it's just the affluent. Even folks like me who can broadly be described as middle class have been guilty of it.

Your example of the 6 year old girl actually makes my point. If she lives in a developing country she's probably living on the equivalent of a few dollars per day; almost anyone in the US or Canada is incredibly affluent compared to her.

Even staying within NA, the middle class here today is incredibly affluent compared to, say, 100 years ago. And that same middle class lives better than any king did 200 years ago.